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HiJorfcs  of  tJ)e 

Rev.  Frederick  William  Faber,  D.  D. 


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THE 


PRECIOUS  BLOOD: 


OK, 


Klrc  ^jricc  jof  (thx  jialirata. 


BY  FREDERICK  WILLIAM  FABER,  D.I). 


AUTHOR    OP 


'  AU  for  Jesus,"  "  The  Blessed  Sacrament"  "  Growth  in  Holiness"  "Creator 
and  Creature"  " Spiritual  Conferences,"  ax.  dr.. 


Ilabet  magnam  vocem  Christi  Sanguis  in  terra,  cum  eo  accepto  ab  omnibus 
gentibus  lespondetur  Amen.  Ha;c  est  clara  vox  Sanguinis,  quani  Sanguis  ipse 
expriuiit,  ex  ore  fidelium  eodem  Sanguine  redemptorum. 

S.  Acgustin.  co-ntra  Faustum.  1.  xii.  c.  10. 


^cpublisbcb  from  gibbante  Sbtets, 

with  the  approbation  of  the 
Most  Reverend,  the  Archbishop  of  Baltimore. 

SIXTEENTH  AMERICAN  EDITION. 
BALTIMORE: 

Published  by  JOHN  MURPHY  &  CO., 

44  W.  Baltimore  Street. 


CONTEXTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PA<J1 

THE    MISTKRY    OP    TVIU    PRECIOUS    BLOOD 9 

CHAPTER  II. 

THE    NECESSITY    OF    THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD 51 

CHAPTER  III. 

THE    EMPIRE    OF    THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD 95 

CHAPTER  IV. 

THE    HISTORY    OF    THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD 167 

CHAPTER  V. 

THE  PRODIGALITY  OF  THE  PRECIOUS  BLOOD 242 

CHAPTER  VI. 

THE    DBV'iTION    TO    THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD 305 


TO   THE    MEMBERS 

©f  the  Confraternity  of  ifo  post  Precious  glooii 

IN  THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  LONDON  ORATORY. 

My  dear  Friends  : — 

I  have  written  this  little  Book  for  you,  and 
now  dedicate  it  to  you  with  feelings  of  the 
warmest  affection.  It  is  ten  years  next  August 
since  the  Holy  Father  set  up  our  Confraternity. 
Since  then  we  have  enrolled  upwards  of  thirty- 
eight  thousand  Member?,  and  a  hundred  and 
four  Religious  Communities.  Besides  this, 
several  other  Confraternities  of  the  Precious 
Blood  have  been  set  up  and  affiliated  with 
ours ;  and  their  members  are  also  very  nume- 
rous. Some  others  have  been  erected  in  imita- 
tion of  ours,  and  independently  of  it,  and  are 
successfully  propagating  our  favorite  devo- 
tion. 

The    meetings    at   the    Oratory    on    Sunday 

nights  testify  to  the  abundant  blessing  which 

our  Lord  has  given  to  this  apostolate  of  prayer. 

Letters  are  arriving  daily,  and  from  the  remotest 

quarters  of  the  world,  either  asking  our  prayers, 

or  returning  thanks  for  unexpected  answers  to 

i*  5 


6         10    TIIE    MEMBERS    OF    THE   CONFRATERNITY. 

prayer,  or  recounting  signal  conversions,  ob- 
tained through  the  intercession  of  the  Con- 
fraternity. Of  late  these  divine  favors  have 
greatly  increased;  and,  while  this  is  a  fresh 
motive  for  the  love  of  God  and  for  confidence 
in  prayer,  it  also  deepens  our  feeling  of  our 
own  unworthiness,  and  greatly  humbles  us. 
The  Confraternity  is  now  so  extended  that 
the  correspondence  includes  letters  from  Ireland 
and  Scotland,  from  France  and  Germany,  from 
Canada  and  y  vfoundland,  from  the  United 
States  and  Central  America,  from  California 
and  Brazil,  from  Australia  and  New  Zealand, 
from  the  East  Indies  and  the  Chinese  Missions, 
from  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  and  other  British 
Dependencies.  "When  we  think  of  all  this, 
we  must  prize  more  and  more  the  privileges  of 
this  grand  union  of  intercessory  prayer.  The 
success  of  the  Confraternity  is  naturally  an 
object  of  lively  interest  both  to  you  and  me. 
To  you,  because  it  is  connected  now  with  so 
many  secret  joys  and  sorrows  of  your  lives, 
and  so  many  hidden  mercies  and  sweet  answers 
to  prayer,  which  are  known  only  to  yourselves: 
to  me,  because  it  is  the  realizing  of  my  hopes 
beyond  what  1  ever  could  have  dreamed :  and 
to  both  of  us,  because  it  is  an  humble  increase 
of  the  glory  of  our  dearest  Lord. 


OF  THE  MOST  PRECIOUS  BLOOD.         7 

I  have  watched  the  growth  of  the  Confrater- 
nity with  a  pleased  surprise;  and  the  tokens 
of  God's  blessing  upon  it  have  overwhelmed 
me  with  gratitude  and  confusion  :  and  I  have 
thought  what  I  could  do.  Though  many  of 
you  are  present  at  the  London  Oratory  every 
Sunday  evening  by  your  letters,  comparatively 
few  of  you  can  be  there  in  person.  Yet  I  have 
felt  that  we  belong  to  each  other,  and  that  I 
should  satisfy  my  own  feelings,  while  I  should 
be  gratifying  yours,  if  I  could  make  some 
affectionate  offering  to  the  whole  of  my  dear 
Confraternity. 

Therefore  I  have  written  this  little  Book.  I 
have  tried  to  tell  you  all  I  know  about  the  Pre- 
cious Blood,  all  that  many  years  of  hard  study 
and  much  thought  have  enabled  me  to  learn  ; 
and  I  have  tried  to  tell  it  you  as  easily  and  as 
simply  as  I  could.  I  thought  I  could  not  please 
you  better  than  by  this.  I  thought  I  could  not 
show  my  gratitude  to  our  Blessed  Redeemer 
better  than  by  striving  to  increase  a  devotion 
which  he  himself,  by  his  blessing  on  the 
Confraternity,  has  shown  to  be  so  pleasing  to 
him.  I  believed  we  could  not  repay  the 
paternal  kindness  of  the  Sovereign  Pontiff*, 
our  Father  and  Founder,  who  has  enriched 
us  with  Indulgences,  in  a  manner  more  wel- 


b      TO  THE  MEMBERS  OF  THE  CONFRATERNITY,  ETC. 

come  to  himself  than  by  an  effort  to  propagate 
the  devotion  to  the  Precious  Blood,  in  whose 
honor  he  has  established  a  new  feast  in  the 
Church  of  God.  I  know  that  I  could  not 
please  myself  better,  than  by  magnifying  the 
Precious  Blood,  which  of  all  the  glorious  ob- 
jects of  Catholic  devotion  has  been  for  years 
the  dearest  to  my  heart, 

Accept,  then,  this  little  but  loving  gift.  Let 
it  stand  as  a  memorial  of  my  love  of  you,  of 
your  love  of  Jesus,  of  the  filial  devotion  of 
both  of  us  to  the  Holy  Father,  and  of  our 
united  thanksgivings  to  our  Blessed  Savior 
for  his  goodness  to  our  Confraternity,  and  for 
our  salvation  through  his  Blood. 

Your  affectionate  Servant  and  Father, 
Frederick  William  Faber, 
Priest  of  the  Oratory. 

The  London  Oratory. 
Feast  of  the  Conversion  of  St.  Paul, 
1800. 


THE  PRECIOUS  BLOOD. 


CHAPTER  1. 

THE    Mi'STERY    OF   THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

Salvation  !  "What  music  is  there  in  that  word, 
— music  that  never  tires  but  is  always  new,  that 
always  rouses  yet  always  rests  us !  It  holds  in 
itself  all  that  our  hearts  would  say.  It  is  sweet 
vigor  to  us  in  the  morning,  and  in  the  evening  it 
is  contented  peace.  It  is  a  song  that  is  alwa}~s 
singing  itself  deep  down  in  the  delighted  soul. 
Angelic  ears  are  ravished  by  it  up  in  heaven ;  and 
our  Eternal  Father  himself  listens  to  it  with  adora- 
ble complacency.  It  is  sweet  even  to  Him  out  of 
whose  mind  is  the  music  of  a  thousand  worlds. 
To  be  saved  !  What  is  it  to  be  saved  ?  Who  can 
tell  ?  Eye  has  not  seen,  nor  ear  heard.  It  is  a 
rescue,  and  from  such  a  shipwreck.  It  is  a  rest, 
and  in  such  an  unimaginable  home.  It  is  to  lie 
down  forever  in  the  bosom  of  God  in  an  endless 
rapture  of  insatiable  contentment. 

"  Thou  shalt  call  his  name  Jesus;  for  he  shall  save 
his  people  from  their  sins."  Who  else  but  Jesus 
can  do  this,  and  what  else  even  from  him  do  we 
require  but  this?  for  in  this  lie  all  things  which 
we  can  desire.     Of  all  misei'ies  the  bondage  of  sin 


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12         THE    MYSTERY   OF   THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

saved.  God's  power  is  holding  our  soul  lest  it 
should  die  of  gladness.  It  cannot  take  in  the 
whole  of  its  eternity.  The  least  accidental  joy  is 
a  world  of  beatitude  in  itself.  The  blaze  of  the 
vision  is  overwhelming.  Then  the  truth  that 
eternity  is  eternal, — this  is  so  hard  to  master. 
Yet  all  this  is  only  what  wo  mean  when  we 
pronounce  the  word  salvation.  How  hideous  the 
difference  of  that  first  moment  after  death,  if  we 
had  not  been  saved  !  It  turns  us  cold  to  think 
of  it.  But  oh,  joy  of  joys  !  we  have  seen  the  face 
of  Jesus;  and  the  light  in  his  eyes,  and  the  smile 
upon  his  face,  and  the  words  upon  his  lips,  were 
salvation. 

But  there  are  some  who  do  not  feel  that  sin 
is  such  a  horror  or  captivity.  They  say  it  lays 
no  weight  upon  their  hearts.  The}^  say  their 
lives  are  full  of  sunsbine,  and  that  time  flows  with 
them  as  the  merry  rivulet  runs  in  summer  with 
a  soothing  brawl  over  its  colored  stones,  and  its 
watei*s  glancing  in  the  sun.  They  say  it  is  so 
with  them ;  and  truly  they  should  know  best. 
Yet  I  hardly  believe  them.  If  they  are  happy, 
it  is  only  by  fits  and  starts;  and  then  not  with  a 
complete  happiness.  There  is  ever  an  upbraiding 
voice  within.  An  habitual  sinner  always  has  the 
look  of  a  jaded  and  disappointed  man.  There  is 
weariness  in  the  very  light  of  his  e}*es,  vexation 
in  the  very  sound  of  his  voice.  Why  is  he  so 
cross  with  others,  if  he  is  so  happy  with  himself? 
Then  are  there  not  also  dreadful  times,  private 
times  when  no  one  but  God  sees  him,  when  he  is 
chilled  through  and  through  with  fear,  when  he  is 
weary  of  life  because  he  is  so  miserable,  when  the 


TIIE    MYSTERY   OF   TIIE   TRECIOUS    BLOOD.         13 

past  weighs  upon  him  like  a  nightmare,  and  the 
future  terrifies  him  like  a  coming  wild  beast? 
When  death  springs  upon  him,  how  will  he  die? 
When  judgment  comes,  what  will  he  answer? 
Yet  even  if  the  sinner  could  go  through  life  with 
the  gay  indifference  to  which  he  pretends,  he  is 
not  to  be  envied.  It  is  only  a  sleep,  a  lethargy, 
or  a  madness, — one  or  other  of  these  according  to 
his  natural  disposition.  For  there  must  be  an 
awakening  at  last;  and  when  and  where  will  it 
be  ?  They  that  walk  in  their  sleep  are  sometimes 
wakened  if  they  put  their  foot  into  cold  water. 
"What  if  the  sinner's  awakening  should  be  from 
the  first  touch  of  the  fire  that  burns  beyond  the 
grave  ? 

But  we  claim  no  share  in  any  foolish  happiness 
of  sin.  "We  are  on  God's  side.  We  belong  to 
Jesus.  Sin  is  our  great  enemy,  as  well  as  our 
great  evil.  We  desire  to  break  with  it  altogether. 
We  are  ashamed  of  our  past  subjection  to  it.  Wo 
are  uneasy  under  our  present  imperfect  separa- 
tion from  it.  Our  uppermost  thought — no  !  not 
merely  our  uppermost  thought,  our  only  thought 
— is  our  salvation.  We  care  for  no  science,  but 
the  science  of  redeeming  grace.  The  cross  of 
Christ  is  our  single  wisdom.  Once  we  wished  foi 
many  things,  and  aimed  at  many  things.  But  we 
are  changed  now.  Our  lives  are  amazingly  sim- 
plified, simplified  by  the  fear  of  sin  and  by  the 
love  of  God.  Our  anxiety  now  is,  that  all  this 
may  remain.  We  fear  another  change,  especially 
a  change  back  again.  We  can  think  calmly  of  no 
change  except  from  little  love  to  much  love,  and 
from  much  love  to  more  love.     The  right  of  Jesus 

2 


14         THE    MYSTERY    OF   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

to  our  love,  to  our  best  love,  to  all  our  love,  Itr 
becoming  plainer  and  plainer  to  us.  His  ex- 
ceeding loveliness  is  growing  more  and  more 
attractive,  because  it  is  revealing  itself  to  us 
every  day  like  a  new  revelation.  What  depths 
there  are  in  Jesus,  and  how  wonderfully  he  lights 
them  up  with  the  splendors  of  his  eternal  love! 
Do  we  not  feel  every  day  more  and  more  strongly, 
that  we  must  be  more  for  Jesus  than  we  are,  that 
of  all  growing  things  divine  love  is  the  most 
growing,  that  all  idea  of  a  limit  to  our  love  of 
Jesus,  or  of  moderation  in  our  service  of  him,  is  a 
folly  as  well  as  a  disloyalty?  He  was  the  bright- 
ness of  innumerable  lives  and  the  sweetness  of 
innumerable  sorrows,  when  he  was  but  the  ex- 
pectation of  longing  Israel.  What  must  he  be 
uoav,  when  he  has  come,  when  he  has  lived,  and 
shed  his  Blood,  and  died,  and  risen,  and  ascended, 
and  then  come  back  again  in  all  the  unutterable 
endearments  of  the  Blessed  Sacrament?  Why 
are  our  heai'ts  so  cold  ?  Why  is  our  love  so  faith- 
less, and  our  faith  so  unloving?  We  try,  and  still 
we  do  not  love  as  we  wish  to  love.  We  try  again, 
and  love  more ;  and  yet  it  is  sadly  short  of  the 
love  we  ought  to  have.  We  strive  and  strive,  and 
still  we  only  languish  when  we  ought  to  burn. 
He  longs  for  our  love,  sweet,  covetous  lover  of 
souls  as  he  is.  He  longs  for  our  love;  and  we 
long  for  nothing  so  much  as  to  love  him.  Surely 
there  must  be  a  time  and  a  place,  when  both  he 
and  we  shall  be  satisfied  ;  but  the  place  will  be 
heaven,  and  the  time  nothing  else  than  the  great 
timeless  eternity. 

Salvation  is  through  the  Precious  Blood.     Wo 


THE   MYSTERY   OP   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD.         15 

will  take  that  for  our  study  of  Jesus  this  time 
"When  love  is  humble,  it  prays  with  David  to  be 
washed  more  and  more  from  its  iniquity.  But 
there  is  no  washing  away  of  iniquity,  except  in 
the  Precious  Blood  of  our  most  dear  Redeemer. 
When  love  is  bold,  it  prays  to  be  set  on  fire  with 
the  flames  which  Jesus  came  to  kindle.  But  it  is 
only  the  Precious  Blood  which  makes  our  heart 
beat  hotly  with  the  love  of  him.  So  let  us  take 
the  Precious  Blood  for  our  study  now  :  and  let  us 
study  it  in  a  simple,  loving  way,  not  so  much  to 
become  deep  theologians,  though  deep  theology 
is  near  of  kin  to  heroic  sanctity,  but  that  our 
hearts  may  be  more  effectually  set  on  fire  with 
the  love  of  Jesus  Christ.  There  is  so  much  to  be 
said,  that  we  cannot  say  it  all,  because  we  do  not 
know  it  all.  We  must  make  a  choice;  and  we 
will  choose  these  six  things,  the  Mystery  of  the 
Precious  Blood,  the  Necessity  of  it,  its  Empire, 
its  History,  its  Prodigality,  and,  last  of  all,  the 
Devotion  to  it  in  the  Church. 

We  must  take  a  saint  to  guide  us  on  our  way. 
Let  it  be  that  grand  lover  of  Jesus,  the  Apostle  St. 
Paul.  His  conversion  was  one  of  the  chief  glories 
of  the  Precious  Blood.  Eedeeming  grace  was  his 
favorite  theme.  He  was  forever  magnifying  and 
praising  the  Blood  of  Jesus.  His  heart  was  filled 
with  it,  and  was  enlarged  by  grace  that  it  might 
hold  yet  more.  After  the  Heart  of  Jesus,  never 
was  there  a  human  heart  like  that  of  Paul,  in 
which  all  other  human  hearts  might  beat  as  if  it 
were  their  own,  unless  it  be  that  other  universal 
heart,  the  heart  of  King  David,  which  has  poured 
itself  out  for  all  mankind,  in  those  varying  strains 


1C  THE    MYSTERY   OF   THE    TRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

of  every  changeful  feeling,  by  means  of  its  sweef 
psalms.  St.  Paul's  heart  feels  for  every  one,  makes 
every  one's  case  its  own,  sorrows  and  rejoices  with. 
those  who  sorrow  or  rejoice,  and  becomes  all  things 
to  all  men  that  it  may  save  them  all.  Among  the 
wonders  of  creation  there  are  few  to  compare  with 
that  glorious  apostolic  heart.  The  vastness  of  its 
sympathies,  the  breadth  of  its  charity,  the  un 
wearied  hopefulness  of  its  zeal,  the  delicacy  of  its 
considerateness,  the  irresistible  attraction  of  its 
imperious  love — all  this  was  the  work  of  the  Pre- 
cious Blood;  and  that  heart  is  still  alive  even  upon 
earth,  still  beating  in  his  marvellous  Epistles  as 
part  of  the  unquenchable  life  of  the  Church.  It  is 
impossible  to  help  connecting  these  characteristics 
of  St.  Paul's  heart  with  the  manifest  devotion  to 
the  Precious  Blood.  Let  us  take  him  then  as  our 
guide  amidst  the  unsearchable  riches  of  Christ  and 
the  superabounding  graces  of  his  redeeming  Blood. 
As  it  was  with  the  disciples  as  they  walked  to 
Emmaus  with  Jesus,  so  will  it  be  with  us  as  we  go 
along  with  his  servant  Paul.  Our  hearts  will  burn 
within  us  by  the  way;  and  we  ourselves  shall  grow 
hot  from  the  heat  of  that  magnificent  heart  of  him 
who  guides  us. 

We  are  then  to  consider,  first  of  all,  the  Itfystery 
of  the  Precious  Blood.  It  was  one  of  God's  eternal 
thoughts.  It  was  part  of  his  wisdom,  part  of  his 
glory,  part  of  his  own  blessedness  from  all  eternity. 
You  know  that  creation,  although  exceedingly 
ancient,  perhaps  so  ancient  as  to  be  beyond  our 
calculations,  is  nevertheless  not  eternal.  It  could 
not  be  so.  To  be  eternal  is  to  be  without  begin- 
ning; and  to  be  without  beginning  is  to  be  indo- 


THE    MYSTERY    OF    THE    TRECIOITS    BLOOD.  IV 

pendent  of  any  cause  or  power.  This  is  a  true 
description  of  God.  But  creation  had  a  time  at 
which  it  began,  and  it  was  the  independent  act  of 
God's  most  holy,  most  condescending  will.  Thui 
there  was  an  eternity  before  creation,  a  vast,  un 
imaginable,  adorable  life,  not  broken  up  into  cen 
turies  and  ages,  not  lapsing  but  always  still,  not 
passing  but  always  stationary,  a  life  which  had  no 
past  and  no  future,  because  its  whole  self  was 
always  present  to  itself.  This  was  the  life  of  God 
before  any  creation,  an  unspeakably  glorious  life, 
which  we  can  think  of  with  love  and  adoration, 
bat  which  it  is  quite  impossible  for  us  to  under- 
stand. We  shall  say  more  of  it  in  the  third  chapter. 
Some  holy  persons,  like  Mother  Anne  Seraphine 
Boulier  of  the  Visitation  at  Dijon,  have  had  such 
an  exceeding  devotion  to  this  life  of  God  prior  to 
creation,  that  they  have  by  God's  order  shaped 
their  spirituality  wholly  upon  it.  Very  often,  when 
the  troubles  of  life  vex  and  ruffle  us,  or  when  we 
are  downcast  and  distrustful,  it  would  do  us  good 
to  think  of  that  ancient  life  of  God.  It  would  fill 
us  with  quiet  awe.  We  should  feel  our  own  little- 
ness more  sensibly,  and  we  should  care  less  about 
the  judgments  of  the  world.  The  thought  of  it 
would  be  like  a  bed  to  lie  down  upon,  when  we 
are  weary  with  work  or  fatigued  with  disappoint- 
ment. 

Nevertheless  there  is  a  sense  in  which  creation 
was  eternal.  It  was  eternally  in  the  mind  of  God. 
It  was  one  of  his  eternal  ideas,  always  before  him; 
so  that  he  never  existed  without  this  idea  of  crea- 
tion in  his  all-wise  mind  and  in  his  all-powerful 
intention.  Moreover,  it  was  always  part  of  his 
B  2* 


18  THE    MYSTERY   OF   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

intention   that   the  Creator   should  become  as  it 
were  part  of  his  own  creation,  and  that  an  Un- 
created Person  should  really  and   truly  assume  a 
created  nature  and   be  born  of  a  created  mother. 
This  is  what  we  call  the  mystery  of  the  Incarna- 
tion.    It  is  this  which  makes  creation  so  maarnifi- 
cent.     It  was  not  merely  a  beautiful  thing  which 
God  made  as  an  artificer,  and  which  he  set  outside 
of  himself,  and  kept  at  a  distance  from  himself  to 
look  at,  to  admire,  to  pity,  and  to  love.    He  always 
intended  to  be  part  of  it  himself  in  a  very  wonder- 
ful way.  So  that  there  would  have  been  Jesus  and 
Mary,  even  if  there  had  never  been  any  sin :  only 
Jesus  would  not  have   been  crucified,  and  Mary 
would  not  have  had  an}-  dolors.     But  the  sight 
of  sin  was  also  with  God  from  the  beginning,  that 
is,  through  all  his  unbeginning  eternity;  ami  thus 
the  Precious  Blood  also,  as  the  ransom  for  sin,  was 
with  him  from  the   beginning.     It  Avas  one  of  his 
eternal  thoughts.     If  we  may  dare  to  say  so,  it 
was  an  idea  which    made  him  more  glorious,  a 
thought  which  rendered  him  more  blessed.     That 
same  dear  Blood,  the  thought  of  which  makes  as 
so  happy  now,  has  been  part  of  God's  happiness 
forever. 

He  created  the  angels  and  the  stars.  How 
ancient  the  angels  are  wo  do  not  know.  In  all 
ways  they  arc  wonderful  to  think  of,  because  they 
are  so  strong,  so  wise,  so  various,  so  beautiful,  so 
innumerable.  But  they  do  not  lie  in  our  way  just 
now;  because,  although  they  owe  all  their  graces 
to  the  Precious  Blood,  they  were  not  redeemed  b}r 
the  Precious  Blood.  Those  angels,  who  did  not 
fall,  did  not  sin,  and  so  needed  no  redemption;  and 


THE    MYSTERY   OF   THE   TRECIOUS   BLOOD  ij 

God  would  not  allow  those  who  fell  to  be  redeemed 
at  all.  This  makes  us  sometimes  think  that  God 
was  more  severe  with  his  world  of  angels  than 
with  his  world  of  men.  But  this  is  not  really  the 
case.  It  only  shows  us  how  we  owe  more  to  Jesus 
than  we  often  think  of.  The  angels  could  not 
make  any  satisfaction  to  the  justice  of  God  for 
their  sins.  If  all  the  angels,  good  and  bad  together, 
nad  suffered  willingly  the  most  excruciating  tor- 
ments for  millions  upon  millions  of  ages,  those 
willing  torments  could  not  have  made  up  to  God 
for  the  sin  of  the  least  sinful  of  those  angels  who 
are  now  devils.  If  our  dearest  Saviour  had  taken 
upon  himself  the  nature  of  angels,  the  case  would 
have  been  different.  But  he  became  man,  not 
angel ;  and  so  his  Passion,  as  man,  satisfied  for  ah 
possible  sins  of  men  The  sufferings  of  his  Pas- 
sion were  greater  and  of  more  price  than  all  the 
torments  of  countless  angels.  The  severity  of  God 
exacted  more  from  him  upon  the  Cross  than  it 
ever  exacted,  or  is  exacting  now,  from  the  tortured 
angels.  Thus  you  see  God  has  not  been  more 
severe  with  them  than  with  us :  only  that  Jesus 
made  himself  one  of  us,  and  took  all  our  share  of 
God's  severity  upon  himself,  leaving  us  the  easy 
happiness  of  faith,  and  hope,  and  love.  You  see 
we  come  upon  the  kindness  of  Jesus  everywhere. 
There  is  not  even  a  difficulty  in  religion,  but  some- 
how the  greatness  of  his  love  is  at  the  bottom  of 
it,  and  is  the  explanation  of  it.  Wonderful  Jesus! 
that  was  the  name  the  prophet  Isaias  gave  him. 
"He  shall  be  called  Wonderful/'  How  sweet  it  is 
to  be  so  hemmed  in  by  the  tokens  of  his  love,  that 
we  cannot  turn  to  any  side  without  meeting  them! 


20  THE    MYSTERY   OP   THE   TRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

Yet  his  love  would  be  sweeter  to  us  if  we  could 
only  repay  it  with  more  love  ourselves. 

God  made  the  angels  and  the  stai*s.  The  starry 
world  is  an  overwhelming  thing  to  think  of.  It» 
distances  are  so  vast  that  they  frighten  us.  The 
mmber  of  its  separate  worlds  is  so  enormous  that 
t  bewilders  us.  Imagine  a  ray  of  light,  which 
travels  one  hundred  and  ninety-two  thousand 
miles  in  a  second;  and  yet  there  are  stars  whose 
light  would  take  a  million  of  years  to  reach  the 
earth.  We  know  of  two  hundred  thousand  stars 
down  to  the  ninth  magnitude.  In  one  single  cluster 
of  stars,  eighteen  millions  of  stars  have  been  dis- 
covered between  the  tenth  and  eleventh  magni- 
tudes. Of  these  clusters  men  have  already  dis- 
covered more  than  four  thousand.  Each  of  these 
stars  is  not  a  planet,  like  the  earth ;  but  a  sim,  like 
our  sun,  and  perhaps  with  planets  round  it,  like 
ourselves.  Of  these  suns  we  know  of  some  which 
are  one  hundred  and  forty-six  times  brighter  than 
our  sun.  What  an  idea  all  this  gives  us  of  the 
grandeur  and  magnificence  of  God  !  Yet  we  know 
that  all  these  stars  were  created  for  Jesus  and  be- 
cause of  Jesus.  He  is  the  head  and  first-born  of 
all  creation.  Mary's  Son  is  the  King  of  the  stars. 
His  Precious  Blood  has  something  to  do  with  all 
of  them.  Just  as  it  merited  graces  for  the  angels, 
so  does  it  merit  blessings  for  the  stars.  If  they 
have  been  inhabited  before  we  were,  or  are  inha- 
bited now,  or  will  at  some  future  time  begin  to  be 
inhabited,  their  inhabitants,  whether  fallen  and 
redeemed,  or  unfallen  and  so  not  needing  to  be 
redeemed,  will  owe  immense  things  to  the  Precious 
Bluod.     Yet  earth,  our   little,  humble  earth,  will 


THE    MYSTERY    OF   THE    TRECIOUS    BLOOD.         21 

always  have  the  right  to  treat  the  Precious  Blood 
with  special  endearments,  because  it  is  its  native 
place,  When  the  angels,  as  they  range  through 
space,  see  our  little  globe  twinkling  with  its  speck 
of  colored  light,  it  is  to  them  as  the  little  Holy 
House  in  the  hollow  glen  of  Nazareth,  more  sacred 
and  more  glorious  than  the  amplest  palaces  in 
starry  space. 

God  made  the  stars;  and,  whether  the  earth  was 
made  by  itself  from  the  first,  or  was  once  part  of 
the  sun,  and  thrown  off  from  it  like  a  ring,  God 
made  the  earth  also,  and  shaped  it,  and  adorned 
it,  and  filled  it  with  trees  and  animals;  and  then 
looked  upon  his  work,  and  it  shone  forth  so  beauti- 
fully with  the  light  of  his  own  perfections,  that  he 
blessed  it,  and,  gloiying  in  it,  declared  that  it  was 
very  good.  We  know  what  an  intense  pleasure 
men  take  in  looking  at  beautiful  scenery.  When 
Ave  feel  this  pleasure,  we  ought  to  feel  that  we  are 
looking  at  a  little  revelation  of  God,  a  very  true 
one  although  a  little  one,  and  we  ought  to  think 
of  God's  complacency  when  he  beheld  the  scenery 
of  the  primeval  earth  and  rejoiced  in  Avhat  he 
saw.  There  was  no  sin  then.  To  God's  eye  earth 
was  all  the  more  beautiful  because  it  was  innocent, 
and  the  dwelling-place  of  innocence.  Then  sin 
came.  Why  God  let  it  come  we  do  not  know.  We 
shall  probably  know  in  heaven.  We  are  certain, 
however,  that  in  some  way  or  other  it  was  more 
glorious  for  him,  and  better  for  us, that  evil  should 
be  permitted.  Some  people  trouble  themselves 
about  this.  It  does  not  trouble  mo  at  all.  What- 
ever God  does  must  of  course  be  most  right.  My 
understanding  it  would  not  make  it  more  right; 


22  TIIE    MYSTERY    OF   TIIE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

neither  could  I  do  any  thing  to  mend  matters,  if  I 
understood  it  ever  so  well.  Every  one  should  keep 
in  his  own  place  :  it  is  the  creature's  place  to  be- 
lieve, adore,  and  love. 

Sin  came.  "With  sin  came  many  fearful  conse- 
quences. This  beautiful  earth  was  completely 
wrecked.  It  went  on  through  space  in  the  sun- 
shine as  before;  but  in  God's  sight,  and  in  tho 
destiny  of  its  inhabitants,  it  was  all  changed. 
Jesus  could  no  longer  come  in  a  glorious  and  un- 
suffering  incarnation.  Maiy  would  have  to  die; 
and,  though  she  was  sinless,  she  would  need  to  be 
redeemed  with  a  single  and  peculiar  redemption, 
a  redemption  of  prevention,  not  of  rescue.  She 
also,  the  immaculate  Mother  and  Queen  of  crea- 
tion, must  be  bought  by  the  Precious  Blood. 
Had  it  not  been  for  Jesus,  the  case  of  earth  would 
have  been  hopeless,  now  that  sin  had  come.  God 
would  have  let  it  go,  as  he  let  the  angels  go.  It 
would  have  been  all  hateful  and  dark  in  his  sight, 
as  the  home  of  the  fallen  spirits  is.  But  it  was 
not  so.  Earth  was  dimmed,  but  it  was  not  dark- 
ened, disfigured,  but  not  blackened.  God  saw  it 
through  the  Precious  Blood,  as  through  a  haze ; 
and  there  it  lay  with  a  dusky  glory  over  it,  like  a 
red  sunset,  up  to  the  day  of  Christ.  ]S"o  sooner 
had  man  sinned,  than  the  influence  of  the  Precious 
Blood  began  to  be  felt.  There  was  no  adorable 
abruptness  on  the  part  of  God,  as  with  the  angels. 
His  vei-y  upbraiding  of  Adam  was  full  of  paternal 
gentleness.  With  his  punishment  he  mingled 
promises.  He  spoke  of  Mary,  Eve's  descendant, 
and  illumined  the  penance  of  our  first  parents  by 
the   prophecy  of  Jesus.     As   the   poor   offending 


THE    MYSTERY    OF    THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.         23 

earth  lay  then  before  the  sight  of  God,  so  does 
it  lie  now ;  only  that  the  haze  is  more  resplendent, 
since  the  Sacrifice  on  Calvary  was  offered.  Tho 
Precious  Blood  covers  it  all  over,  like  a  sea  or  like 
an  atmosphere.  It  lies  in  a  beautiful  crimson 
light^forever,  a  light  softening  the  very  shades, 
beautifying  the  very  gloom.  God  does  not  see  us 
as  we  see  ourselves,  but  in  a  brighter,  softer  light. 
We  are  fairer  in  his  sight  than  we  are  in  our  own, 
notwithstanding  his  exceeding  sanctity,  because  he 
sees  us  in  the  Blood  of  his  dear  Son.  This  is  a 
consolation,  the  balm  of  which  is  not  easily  ex- 
hausted. We  learn  a  lesson  from  it  also.  Our 
view  of  creation  should  be  like  God's  view.  We 
should  see  it,  with  all  its  coimtless  souls,  through 
the  illuminated  mist  of  the  Precious  Blood.  Its 
spiritual  scenery  should  be  before  us,  every  thing, 
everywhere,  goldenly  red. 

This  is  the  shape,  then,  which  our  Father's 
love  takes  to  us  his  creatures.  It  is  an  invitation 
of  all  of  us  to  the  worship  and  the  freedom  of  the 
Precious  Blood.  It  is  through  this  Blood  that  he 
communicates  to  us  his  perfections.  It  is  in  this 
Blood  that  he  has  laid  up  his  blessings  for  m,  as 
in  a  storehouse.  This  is  true,  not  only  of  spiritual 
blessings,  but  of  all  blessings  whatsoever.  That 
the  elements  still  wait  upon  us  sinners,  that 
things  around  us  are  so  bright  and  beautiful,  that 
pain  has  so  many  balms,  that  sorrow  has  so  many 
alleviations,  that  the  common  course  of  daily  pro- 
vidence is  so  kindly  and  so  patient,  that  the 
weight,  the  frequency,  and  the  bitterness  of  evils 
are  so  much  lightened, — is  all  owing  to  the  Pre- 
cious  Blood.     It   is   by  this  Blood   that   he   has 


24         THE    MYSTERY   OF   THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

created  over  again  his  frustrated  creation.  It  is 
out  of  this  Blood  that  all  graces  come,  whether 
those  of  Mary,  or  those  of  the  angels,  or  those 
*f  men.  It  is  this  Blood  which  merits  all  good 
things  for  every  one.  The  unhappy  would  bo 
more  unhappy,  were  it  not  for  this  Blood.  The 
wicked  would  be  more  wicked,  were  it  not  for  this 
Blood.  The  flames  of  hell  would  burn  many  times 
more  furiously,  if  the  shedding  of  this  Blood  had 
not  allayed  their  fury.  There  is  not  a  corner  of 
God's  creation,  which  is  not  more  or  less  under 
the  benignant  control  of  the  Precious  Blood. 

Our  Heavenly  Father,  then,  may  well  call  his 
creatures  to  gather  round  these  marvellous  foun- 
tains, and  adoi'e  his  wisdom  and  his  love.  "Who 
could  have  dreamed  of  such  an  invention,  an 
invention  which  grows  more  astonishing  the  more 
avo  penetrate  its  mystery  ?  The  angels  wonder 
more  than  men,  because  they  better  understand 
it.  Their  superior  intelligence  ministers  more 
abundant  matter  to  their  love.  From  the  very 
first  he  invited  the  angels  to  adore  it.  He  made 
their  adoration  a  double  exercise  of  humility, — of 
humility  toward  himself,  and  of  humility  toward 
us  their  inferior  fellow-creatures.  It  was  the  test 
to  which  he  put  their  loyalty.  He  showed  them 
his  beloved  Son,  the  Second  Person  of  the  Holy 
Trinity,  in  his  Sacred  Humanity,  united  to  a 
lower  nature  than  their  own,  and  in  that  lower 
nature  crowned  their  King  and  Head,  to  be  wor- 
shipped by  them  with  absolute  and  unconditional 
adoration.  The  Son  of  a  human  mother  was  to  bo 
their  Head,  and  that  daughter  of  Eve  to  be  herself 
their  queen.     He  showed  them  in  that  Blood  the 


THE    MYSTERY    OF   THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.         25 

source  of  all  their  graces.  Each  angel  perhaps 
had  thousands  of  beautiful  graces.  To  many  of 
them  we  on  earth  could  give  no  name,  if  we 
beheld  them,  lint  they  were  all  wonderful,  all 
instinct  with  supernatural  holiness  and  spiritual 
magnificence.  Yet  there  Mas  not  a  single  grace 
in  any  angel  which  was  not  merited  for  him  by 
the  Blood  of  Jesus,  and  which  had  not  also  its 
type  and  counterpart  in  that  Precious  Blood. 
The  Precious  Blood — man's  Blood — was  as  the  dew 
of  the  whole  kingdom  of  the  angels.  It  would 
have  redeemed  them,  had  they  needed  to  be  re- 
deemed or  were  allowed  to  be  redeemed.  But,  as 
it  was  not  so,  it  merited  for  them,  and  was  the 
source  of,  all  their  grace.  Well  then  may  the 
angels  claim  to  sing  the  song  of  the  Lamb,  to 
whose  outpoured  Human  Life  they  also  owed  so 
much,  though  not  because  it  was  outpoured. 

Nevertheless  the  Precious  Blood  belongs  in  an 
especial  manner  to  men.  Much  more,  therefore, 
does  God  invite  them  to  come  to  its  heavenly 
baths,  and  receive  therein,  not  only  the  cleansing 
of  their  souls,  but  the  power  of  a  new  and 
amazing  life.  Every  doctrine  in  theology  is  a 
call  to  the  Precious  Blood.  Every  ceremony  in 
the  Church  tells  of  it.  Every  sermon  that  is 
preached  is  an  exhortation  to  the  use  of  it. 
Every  Sacrament  is  a  communication  of  it. 
Every  supernatural  act  is  a  growth  of  it.  Every 
thing  that  is  holy  on  the  earth  is  either  leaf,  bud, 
blossom,  or  fruit  of  the  Blood  of  Jesus.  To  its 
fountains,  God  calls  the  sinner,  that  he  may  be 
lightened  of  his  burdens.  There  is  no  remission  foi 
him  in  any  thing  else.     Only  there  is  his  lost  son* 

3 


2G         THE    MYSTERY    OF   THE    mECIOUS   BLOOD. 

ship  to  be  found.  But  the  saints  are  no  less  called 
by  God  to  these  invigorating  streams.  It  is  out 
of  the  Precious  Blood  that  men  draw  martyrdoms, 
vocations,  celibacies,  austerities,  heroic  charitiesf 
and  all  the  magnificent  graces  of  high  sanctity. 
The  secret  nourishment  of  prayer  is  from  tliose 
fountains.  They  purge  tbe  eye  for  sublime  con- 
templations. They  kindle  the  inward  tires  of 
Belt-sacrificing  love.  They  bear  a  man  safely, 
and  even  impetuously,  over  the  seeming  impos- 
sibilities of  perseverance.  It  is  by  the  Blood  of 
Jesus  that  tbe  soul  becomes  ever  more  and  more 
radiant.  It  is  the  secret  source  of  all  mystical 
transformations  of  the  soul  into  the  likeness  of  its 
Crucified  Spouse.  It  is  the  wine  which  "inebri- 
ates" the  virgins  of  God.  Out  of  it  come  rap- 
tures, and  ecstasies;  and  b}T  it  the  strength  of 
faith  grows  even  to  the  gift  of  miracles.  It  fills 
the  mind  with  heavenly  visions,  and  peoples  the 
air  with  divine  voices.  All  the  new  nature  of  the 
man,  who  is  "renewed  in  Christ  Jesus,"  comes 
from  this  Blood,  whether  it  be  his  love  of  suffer- 
ing, his  delight  in  shame,  his  grace  of  prayer,  his 
unworldly  tastes,  his  strange  humility,  his  shy_ 
concealment,  bis  zeal  for  souls,  his  venturous 
audacity,  or  his  obstinate  perseverance.  Sinner, 
saint,  and  common  Christian,  all  in  their  jwn 
ways,  require  the  Precious  Blood  each  moment 
of  their  lives;  and,  as  the  manna  in  the  mouths 
of  the  Israelites  had  the  savor  which  each  man 
wished  it  to  have,  so  is  it  with  the  sweetness,  tho 
variety,  and  the  fitness  of  the  graces  of  the  Pre- 
cious Blood. 

All  men  remember  their  past  lives  by  certain 


THE    MYSTERY    OF    THE    TRECIOUS    BLOOD.         27 

dates  or  epochs.  Some  men  date  by  sorrows, 
some  bj'  joys,  and  some  by  moral  changes  or 
intellectual  revolutions.  Some  divide  their  lives 
according  to  the  different  localities  which  they 
have  inhabited,  and  some  by  the  successive  occu- 
pations in  which  they  have  been  engaged.  The 
lives  of  some  are  mapped  out  by  illnesses,  while  the 
tranquillity  of  an  equable  prosperity  can  only  dis- 
tinguish itself  by  the  lapse  of  years  and  the  eras 
of  boyhood,  youth,  and  age.  But  the  real  dates 
in  a  man's  life  are  the  days  and  hours  in  which  it 
came  to  him  to  have  some  new  idea  of  God.  To 
all  men  perhaps,  but  certainly  to  the  thoughtful 
and  the  good,  all  life  is  a  continual  growing  reve- 
lation of  God.  We  may  know  no  more  theology 
this  year  than  we  did  last  year,  but  we  undoubt- 
edly know  many  fresh  things  about  God.  Time 
itself  discloses  him.  The  operations  of  grace  illu- 
minate him.  Old  truths  grow:  obscure  truths 
brighten.  New  truths  are  incessantly  dawning. 
But  a  new  idea  of  God  is  like  a  new  birth.  What 
a  spiritual  revolution  it  was  in  the  soul  of  St. 
rVter,  when  the  Eternal  Father,  intensely  loving 
that  eager,  ardent  follower  of  his  Son,  one  day 
secretly  revealed  to  him  the  divinity  of  his  be- 
loved Master  !  It  matters  not  whether  it  were  in 
a  dream  by  night,  or  in  an  audible  voice  at  prayer, 
or  in  the  last  noiseless  step  of  a  long-pondered 
train  of  thought.  Whenever  and  however  it  came, 
it  was  a  divine  revelation  out  of  which  flowed 
that  new  life  of  his,  which  is  the  strength  of  the 
Church  to  this  day.  So  in  its  measure  and  degree 
is  every  new  idea  of  God  to  every  one  of  us.  The 
Precious  Blood  brings  us  many  such  ideas.     One 


28         THE    MYSTERY   OF   THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

of  them  is  the  fresh  picture  which  it  presents  to 
us  of  his  intense  yearning;  love  of  souls.  If  wo 
were  to  form  our  idea  of  God  from  theology,  it 
would  be  full  of  grandeur.  We  should  have  a 
perception  of  him  as  vivid  as  it  would  be  sublime. 
But  if,  nut  hitherto  having  known  the  Bible,  we 
were  to  turn  to  the  Old  Testament,  and  sec  God 
loving,  favoring,  magnifying,  his  own  historic 
people,  and  hear  him  passionately  pleading  for 
their  love,  he  would  seem  like  a  new  God  to  us, 
because  we  should  receive  such  a  new  idea  of  him. 
Indeed,  it  would  be  such  an  idea  of  him  as  would 
require  both  time  and  management  before  it 
would  harmonize  with  the  idea  of  him  implanted 
in  us  by  theolog}\  Even  our  own  sinfulness  gives 
us  in  one  sense  a  broader  idea  of  God  than  inno- 
cence could  have  given.  So,  if  we  think  of  the 
almost  piteous  entreaties  with  which  he  invites 
all  the  wide  heathen  world  to  the  Precious  Blood, 
whether  by  the  voice  of  his  Church,  or  by  the 
bleeding  feet  and  wasting  lives  of  his  missionaries, 
or  by  secret  pleadings  down  in  each  heathen 
heart,  grace-solicited  at  every  hour,  we  get  a  new 
idea  of  God,  and  a  more  complete  conviction  that 
his  invitation  of  his  creatures  to  the  Precious 
Blood  is  indeed  the  genuine  expression  of  his 
creative  love. 

There  is  no  nai'rowness  in  divine  things.  There 
is  no  narrowness  in  the  Precious  Blood.  It  is  a 
divine  invention  which  partakes  of  the  universality 
and  immensity  of  God.  The  tribes  that  inhabit 
the  different  lands  of  the  earth  are  distinguished 
by  different  characteristics.  One  nation  differs  so 
much  from  another,  as  to  be  often  unable  to  judge 


THE    MYSTERY   OF   THE    l'RECIOUS   BLOOD.         29 

of  the  moral  character  of  the  other's  actions. 
What,  fur  instance,  would  he  pride  in  the  inha- 
bitant of  one  country  would  only  be  patriotism  in 
the  inhabitant  of  another;  or  what  would  be  false- 
hood in  one  country  is  only  the  characteristic  way 
of  putting  things  in  another.  It  is  not  that  the 
immutable  principles  of  morality  can  be  changed 
by  national  character  or  by  climate;  but  that  out- 
ward actions  signify  such  different  inward  habits 
in  various  countries,  that  a  foreigner  is  no  judge 
of  them.  Thus  a  foreign  history  of  anjT  people  is 
for  the  most  part  little  better  than  a  hypothesis, 
and  is  not  unfrcquently  a  misapprehension  from 
first  to  last.  But  the  Precious  Blood  is  meant  for 
all  nations.  As  all  stand  in  equal  need  of  it,  so  all 
find  it  just  what  they  want.  It  is  to  each  people 
the  grace  which  shall  correct  that  particular  form 
of  human  corruption  which  is  prominent  in  their 
natural  character.  The  Oriental  and  the  "Western 
must  both  come  to  its  healing  streams;  and  in  it. 
all  national  distinctions  are  done  away.  In  that 
laver  of  Salvation  there  is  neither  Jew  nor  Greek, 
barbarian,  Scythian,  bond,  or  free:  all  are  one  in 
the  redeeming  Blood  of  Jesus. 

As  it  is  with  the  countries  of  the  world,  so  is  't 
with  the  ages  of  the  world.  Each  age  has  its  own 
distinctive  spirit.  It  has  its  own  proper  virtues, 
and  its  own  proper  vices.  It  has  its  own  sciences, 
inventions,  literature,  policy,  and  development. 
Each  age  thinks  itself  peculiar,  which  it  is;  and 
imagines  it  is  better  than  other  ages,  which  it  is 
not.  It  is  probably  neither  better  nor  worse.  In 
substantial  matters  the  ages  are  pretty  much  on  a 
level  with  each  other.     But  each  has  its  own  way; 

3* 


30  THE    MYSTERY   OF   THE   TRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

and  requires  to  be  dealt  with  in  that  way.  This 
is  the  reason  why  the  Church  seems  to  act  differ- 
ently in  different  ages.  There  is  a  sense  in  which 
the  Church  goes  along  with  the  world.  It  is  the 
same  sense  in  which  the  shepherd  leaves  the  sheep 
which  have  not  strayed,  and  goes  off  in  search  of 
the  one  that  has  strayed.  Each  age  is  a  stray 
sheep  from  God;  and  the  Church  has  to  seek  it 
and  fetch  it  back  to  him,  so  far  as  it  is  allowed  to 
do  so.  We  must  not  make  light  of  the  differences 
of  the  ages.  Each  age  needs  persuading  in  a  man- 
ner of  its  own.  It  finds  its  own  difficulties  in  reli- 
gion. It  has  its  own  peculiar  temptations  and 
lollies.  God's  work  is  never  done  in  any  one  age. 
It  has  to  be  begun  again  in  every  age.  Old  con- 
troversies become  useless,  because  they  cease  to 
be  convincing.  Old  methods  are  found  unsuitable, 
because  things  have  changed.  It  is  on  this  account 
that  theology  puts  on  new  aspects,  that  religious 
orders  first  succeed  and  then  fail,  that  devotion 
has  fashions  and  vicissitudes,  that  art  and  ritual 
undergo  changes,  that  discipline  is  modified,  and 
that  the  Church  puts  herself  in  different  relations 
to  the  governments  of  the  world.  But  the  Pre- 
cious Blood  adapts  itself  with  changeful  uniformity 
to  every  age.  It  is  always  old  and  always  new. 
It  is  the  one  salvation.  It  is  coextensive  with 
any  civilization.  No  science  innovates  upon  it. 
The  world  never  exhausts  its  abundance  or  out- 
grows its  necessity. 

But  why  should  we  heap  together  these  gene- 
ralities';' Are  they  any  thing  more  than  so  much 
pious  rhetoric?  Let  us  draw  nearer  to  the  mystery 
ur.d  see.     What  strikes  us  at   the  first  thought  of 


THE    MYSTERY    OF    THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.         31 

the  Precious  Blood?  It  is  that  we  have  to  wor- 
ship it  with  the  highest  worship.  It  is  not  u  relic 
at  which  we  should  look  with  wonder  and  love, 
and  which  we  should  kiss  with  reverence,  as  having 
once  been  a  temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  an 
instrument  chosen  by  Cod  for  the  working  of 
miracles,  or  as  flesh  and  bone  penetrated  with  that 
celestial  virtue  of  the  Blessed  Sacrament  which 
will  raise  it  up  at  the  last  day  in  a  glorious  resur- 
rection. It  is  something  unspeakably  more  than 
this.  We  should  have  to  adore  it  with  the  highest 
adoration.  In  some  local  heaven  or  other,  in  some 
part  of  space  far  off  or  near,  God  at  this  hour  is 
unveiling  his  blissful  majesty  before  the  angels  and 
the  saints.  It  is  in  a  local  court  of  inconceivable 
magnificence.  The  Human  Body  and  Soul  of  Jesus 
are  there,  and  are  its  light  and  glory,  the  -  i  pass- 
ing sun  of  that  heavenly  Jerusalem.  Mary,  his 
Mother,  is  throned  there  like  a  lovely  moon  in  the 
mid-glory  of  the  sunset,  beautified  rather  than  ex- 
tinguished by  the  effulgence  round  her.  Millions 
of  lordly  angels  are  abasing  their  vast  grandeur 
before  the  ecstatic  terror  of  that  unclothed  Vision 
of  the  Eternal.  Thrills  of  entrancing  fear  run 
through  the  crowds  of  glorified  saints  wdio  throng 
the  spaces  of  that  marvellous  shrine.  Mary  her- 
self upon  her  throne  is  shaken  by  an  ecstasy  of 
fear  before  the  mightiness  of  God,  even  as  a  reed 
is  shaken  by  the  wind  The  Sacred  Heart  of  Jesns 
beats  with  rapturous  awe,  and  is  glorified  by  the 
very  blessedness  of  its  abjection,  before  the  im- 
mensity of  those  Divine  Fires,  burning  visibly  in 
their  overwhelming  splendors.  If  wre  could  enter 
there  as  we  are  now,  we  should  surely  die.     We 


32  TUE    MYSTERY    OF    TIIE   TRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

arc  not  strengthened  yet  to  bear  the  depth  of  that 
prcstrate  humiliation,  -which  is  needed  there,  and 
which  is  the  inseparable  joy  of  heaven.  Our  lives 
would  be  shattered  by  the  throbs  of  awe  which 
must  beat  like  vehement  pulses  in  our  souls.  But 
we  know  the  limits  of  our  nature.  We  know,  at 
least  in  theory,  the  abjection  which  befits  the 
creature  in  the  immediate  presence  of  its  Creator. 
We  can  conceive  the  highest  adoration  of  a  sinless 
immortal  soul  as  a  worship  winch  it  could  not  pay 
to  any  creature,  however  exalted,  however  near  to 
God.  We  can  picture  ourselves  to  ourselves,  pros- 
trate on  the  clouds  of  heaven,  blinded  with  excess 
of  light,  every  faculty  of  the  mind  jubilantly 
amazed  by  the  immensity  of  the  Divine  Perfec- 
tions, every  affection  of  the  heart  drowned  in  somo 
forever  new  abyss  of  the  unfathomable  sweetness 
of  God.  We  know  that  we  should  lie  in  sacred 
fear  and  glad  astonishment  before  the  throne  of 
Mary,  if  we  saw  it  gleaning  in  its  royalty.  Yet 
we  know  also  that  this  Jeep  reverence  would 
be  something  of  quite  a  different  kind  from  our 
abjection  before  the  tremendous  majesty  of  God. 
But,  if  we  saw  one  drop  of  the  Precious  Blood, 
banging  like  the  least  pearl  of  dew  upon  a  blade 
of  grass  on  Calvary,  or  as  a  dull  disfigured  splash 
in  the  dust  of  the  gateway  of  Jerusalem,  we  should 
nave  to  adore  it  with  the  selfsame  adoration  as  the 
uncovered  splendors  of  the  Eternal. 

It  is  no  use  repeating  this  a  thousand  times;  yet 
we  should  have  to  repeat  it  a  thousand  thousand 
times,  for  years  and  years,  before  we  should  get 
the  vastness  of  this  piercing  truth  into  our  souls. 
We  should  worship  one  drop  of  the  Precious  Blood 


THE    MYSTERY    OF   THE    mECIOUS    BLOOD.         3H 

with  the  same  worship  as  that  wherewith  wo  wor- 
ship God.  Let  us  kneel  down,  and  hide  our  faces 
before  God,  and  say  nothing,  but  let  the  immensity 
of  this  faith  sink  down  into  our  souls. 

If  the  Easter  Resurrection  left  any  red   stains 
upon  the  stones,  or  roots,  or  earth  of  Gethsemane, 
they  are  no  longer  to  be  found  beneath  the  luxu- 
riant vegetation  of  the  Franciscan  garden  there. 
Neither  indeed  if  they  had  been  left,  when  Easter 
passed,  could  we  have  worshipped  them  with  divine 
worship;    for  they  had  already  ceased  to  be  the 
Precious  Blood.     "Whatever  Jesus  did  not  reunite 
to  himself  in  the  Resurrection  remained  disunited 
from  the  Person  of  the  Word  forever,  and  there- 
fore, however  venerable,  had  no  claim  to  adoration. 
But,  had  we  been  in  Jerusalem  on  the  Friday  and 
the  Saturday,  wo   should   have  found  objects,  or 
rather   the    multiplied   presence  of   an  object,  of 
dreadest  worship  everywhere.     The  pavement  of 
the    streets,    the    accoutrements    of    the    Roman 
legionaries,  the  floors  of  their  barracks,  the  steps 
of  Pilate's  judgment-hall,  the  pillar  of  the  scourg- 
ing, the  ascent  of  Calvary,  the  wood  of  the  Cross, 
many  shoes  and  sandals  of  the  multitude,  many 
garments   either  worn  or  in   the  clothes-presses, 
ropes,    tools,    scourges,   and    many   other   things, 
were    stained    with    Precious  Blood;    and  every- 
where the  angels  were  adoring  it.     Had  we  been 
there,  and  had  been  wise  with  the  holy  wisdom  of 
our  present  faith,  we  must   have  adored  it  also. 
But  what  a  picture  of  the  world  it  gives  us!    What 
an  awful  taking  of  a  place  in  his  own  creation  on 
the  part  of  the  Incomprehensible  Creator!    What 
a  view  of  God  it  gives  us!     What  an  idea  of  sin  ! 
c 


34  THE    MYSTERY    OF   THE   l'RECIOUS   BLOOD. 

What  a  disclosure  of  the  magnificence  of  our  salva- 
tion! The  Blood  of  God,  the  human  Blood  of  tho 
Uncreated,  the  Blood  of  the  Unbeginning  drawn 
three-and-thirty  years  ago  from  the  veins  of  a 
Jewish  maiden,  and  she,  the  unproclaimed  queen 
of  creation,  hidden  in  that  very  city  in  the  depths 
of  an  immeasurable  sorrow  !  Millions  of  angels 
intently  adoring  down  upon  the  low-lying  surface 
of  the  ground,  as  if  heaven  were  there,  helow 
rather  than  above,  as  indeed  it  was,  and  at  each 
spot  adoring  with  such  singular  concentration,  as 
if  the  Divine  Life  had  been  broken  up,  and  there 
were  many  Gods  instead  of  One  !  Meanwhile  men, 
the  very  part  of  creation  which  this  Precious  Blood 
most  specially  concerned,  were  passing  thiough 
the  streets,  and  over  the  ruddy  spots,  treading  on 
adorable  things  and  yet  never  heeding,  with  angels 
beneath  their  sandals  and  yet  never  knowing  it, 
compassed  thickly  round  with  mysteries  the  sudden 
revelation  of  which  would  have  struck  them  dead, 
and  yet  with  the  most  utter,  unsuspecting  igno- 
rance. It  is  hard  to  bring  such  a  state  of  things 
home  to  ourselves;  and  yut  it  is  but  a  type  to  us 
of  what  we  are  all  of  us  always  doing  with  the 
invisible  presence  of  God  among  ourselves.  God 
is  within  us  and  without  us,  above,  below,  and 
around  us.  Wheresoever  we  set  our  feet,  God  is 
there,  even  if  we  be  going  to  do  evil.  If  we  reach 
forth  our  hands, _God  is  in  our  hand;  he  is  in  the 
air  through  which  our  hand  passes;  and  where 
our  hand  touches,  there  is  God  also.  lie  is  there 
in  three  different  ways,  b}-  his  essence, by  his  pre- 
sence, and  by  his  power;  and  in  each  of  those 
three   ways    his   presence   is    more   real   than   tho 


THE    MYSTERY    OF   THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.         35 

hardness  of  the  rocks,  or  the  wetness  of  water,  01 
the  firmness  of  the  earth.  Yet  we  go  our  ways 
as  we  please,  sinning,  boasting,  and  committing 
follies,  not  simply  in  a  consecrated  sanctuary,  but 
in  the  living  God.  This  mystery  was  made  mani- 
fest, by  the  most  wonderful  of  revelations,  in  the 
Precious  Blood,  when  it  was  scattered  about 
Jerusalem. 

But  we  need  not  go  to  Jerusalem,  we  need  not 
have  lived  eighteen  hundred  years  ago,  to  find  the 
Precious  Blood  and  worship  it.  Here  is  part  of 
that  awfulness  of  our  holy  faith,  which  makes  us 
so  thrill  with  love  that  it  is  sometimes  as  if  we 
could  not  bear  the  fire  which  is  burning  in  our 
hearts.  We  actually  worship  it  every  day  in  the 
chalice  at  Mass.  When  the  chalice  is  uplifted  over 
the  altar,  the  Blood  of  Jesus  is  there,  whole  and 
entire,  glorified  and  full  of  the  pulses  of  his  true 
human  life.  The  blood  that  once  la}'  in  the  cave 
at  Olivet,  that  curdled  in  the  thongs  and  knots  of 
the  scourges,  that  matted  his  hair  and  soaked  his 
garments,  that  stained  the  crown  of  thorns  and 
bedewed  the  Cross,  the  Blood  that  he  drank  him- 
self in  his  own  communion  on  the  Thursday  night, 
the  Blood  that  lay  all  Friday  night  in  seemingly 
careless  prodigality  upon  the  pavement  of  the 
treacherous  city, — that  same  Blood  is  living  in  the 
chalice,  united  to  the  Person  of  the  Eternal  Word, 
to  be  worshipped  with  the  uttermost  prostration 
of  our  bodies  and  our  souls.  When  the  beams  of 
the  morning  sun  come  in  at  tlie  windows  of  the 
church,  and  fall  for  a  moment  into  the  uncovered 
chalice,  and  glance  there  as  if  among  precious 
stones  with   a  restless,  timid  g^iong,  and   the 


80         THE    MYSTERY    OF   THE    PRECIOUS   Bl.OOH. 

priest  sees  it,  and  the  light  seems  to  vibrate  intc 
his  own  heart,  quickening  his  faith  and  love,  it  is 
the  Blood  of  God  which  is  there,  the  very  living 
Blood  whose  first  fountains  were,  in  the  Immacu- 
late Heart  of   Mary.     When   the   Blessed   Sacra- 
ment is  laid  upon  your  tongue, — that  moment  and 
that  act  which  the  great  angels  of  God  look  down 
upon   with   such    surpassing    awe, — the  Blood   of 
Jesus  is  throhhing  there  in  all  its  abounding  life 
of  glory.     It  sheathes  in  the  sacramental  mystery 
that   exceeding    radiance    which    is    lighting   all 
heaven  at  that  moment  with   a  magnificence  of 
splendor  which  exceeds  the  glowing  of  a  million 
suns.     You   do  not  feel   the   strong  pulses  of  his 
immortal  life.     If  you  did,  you  could  hardly  live 
yourself.     Sacred   terror   would    undo    3-0111*    life. 
But  in   that  adorable  Host  is  the  whole  of  the 
Precious  Blood,  the  Blood  of  Gethsemane,  Jeru- 
salem, and  Calvary,  the  Blood  of  the  Passion,  of 
the  Resurrection,  and  of  the  Ascension,  the  Blood 
shed  and  reassumed.     As  Mary  bore  that  Precious 
Blood  within  herself  of  old,  so  do  you  bear  it  now. 
It  is  in  his  Heart  and  veins,  within  the  temple  of 
his  Body,  as  it  was  when  he  lay  those  nine  months 
in  her  ever-blessed  womb.     We  believe  all   this; 
nay,  we  so  believe  it  that  we  know  it  rather  than 
believe  it;  and  yet  our  love  is  so  faint  and  fitful. 
Our  very  fires  are  frost  in  comparison  with  such 
a  faith  as  this. 

The  whole  of  the  Precious  Blood  is  in  the  Chalice 
and  in  the  Host.  It  is  not  part:  it  is  the  whole. 
We  may  well  tremble  to  think  what  sanctuaries 
we  are  when  the  Blessed  Sacrament  is  within  us. 
Let  us  think  asrain  of  tne  innumerable  stars.     Let 


THE    MYSTERY    OF   TIIE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD.         37 

us  multiply  their  actual  millions  by  millions  of 
imaginary  millions  more.  Let  us  suppose  them 
all  to  be  densely  inhabited  for  countless  ages  by 
rau^s  of  fallen  beings.  We  have  no  figures  to 
suow  the  numbers  of  the  individual  souls,  still  less 
to  represent  the  multiplied  acts  of  sin  of  all  those 
single  souls  or  spirits.  But  Ave  know  this,  that 
one  drop  of  the  thousands  of  drops  of  the  Precious 
Blood  in  the  glorified  Body  of  Jesus  would  have 
been  more  than  sufficient  to  clease  all  those  count- 
less fallen  creations,  and  to  absolve  every  separate 
sinner  from  every  one  of  his  multitudinous  sins. 
Nay,  that  one  drop  would  have  given  out  all  those 
worlds  of  redeeming  grace,  and  yet  no  tittle  of  its 
treasures  would  be  spent.  The  worth  of  one  drop 
of  the  Precious  Blood  is  simply  infinite;  conse- 
quently, no  imaginary  arithmetic  of  possible  crea- 
tions will  convey  any  adequate  idea  of  its  over- 
whelming magnificence.  Alas  !  the  very  copious- 
ness of  our  redemption  makes  our  view  of  it  less 
clear.  The  very  crowding  of  God's  love  causes  it 
to  have  something  indistinguishable  about  it. 
Who  does  not  see  that  it  will  take  us  an  eternity 
to  learn  Jesus,  or  rather  that  we  shall  never  learn 
him,  but  that  the  endless  work  of  learning  him 
will  be  the  gladness  of  our  eternity? 

But  this  is  not  all  the  mystery.  It  was  no  neces- 
sity which  drove  God  to  the  redemption  of  the 
world  by  the  Precious  Blood.  He  might  have  re- 
deemed it  in  unnumbered  other  ways.  There  is 
no  limit  to  his  power,  no  exhaustion  of  his  wis- 
dom. He  might  have  reconciled  the  forgiveness 
of  sin  with  his  stainless  sanctity  by  many  inven- 
tions of  which  neither  we  nor  the  angels  can  so 


38  THE    MYSTERY    OF   TIIE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

much  as  dream.  There  are  vastnesses  in  Him 
who  is  incomprehensible,  of  the  existence  of  which 
we  have  no  suspicion.  He  could  have  saved  us 
without  Jesus,  according  to  the  absoluteness  of  his 
power.  All  salvation  must  be  dear:  yet  who  can 
dream  of  a  salvation  which  should  seem  at  once 
so  worthy  of  God  and  so  endearing  to  man  as  our 
present  salvation  through  Jesus  Christ?  Even 
then  our  dearest  Lord  need  not  have  shed  his 
Blood.  There  was  no  compulsion  in  the  Blood- 
shedding.  One  tear  of  his,  one  momentary  sigh, 
one  uplifted  look  to  his  Father's  throne,  would 
have  been  sufficient-,  if  the  Three  Divine  Persons 
had  so  pleased.  The  shedding  of  his  Blood  was 
part  of  the  freedom  of  his  love.  It  was,  in  some 
mysterious  reality,  the  way  of  redemption  most 
worthy  of  his  blessed  majesty,  and  also  the  way 
most  likely  to  provoke  the  love  of  men.  How 
often  has  God  taken  the  ways  of  our  hearts  as  the 
measure  of  his  own  ways!  How  often  does  he  let 
his  glory  and  our  love  seem  to  be  different  things, 
and  then  leave  himself  and  go  after  us! 

The  Precious  Blood  is  invisible.  Yet  nothing  in 
creation  is  half  so  potent.  It  is  everywhere,  prac- 
tically everywhere,  although  it  is  not  omnipresent. 
It  becomes  visible  in  the  fruits  of  grace.  It  will 
become  more  visible  in  the  splendors  of  glory. 
But  it  will  itself  be  visible  in  heaven  in  our  Lord's 
glorified  Body  as  in  crystalline  vases  of  incom- 
parable refulgence.  It  belongs  to  him,  the  Second 
Person  of  the  Most  Holy  Trinity,  although  its 
work  is  the  work  of  the  whole  Trinity.  In  its 
efficacy  and  operation  it  is  the  most  complete  and 
most  wonderful  of  all  revelations  of  the  Divine 


TIIK    MYSTERY    OF   TIIK    I'RECIOUS   BLOOD.         39 

Perfections.  The  power,  the  wisdom,  the  good- 
ness, the  justice,  the  sanctity,  of  God,  are  most 
pre-eminently  illustrated  by  the  working  of  this 
Precious  Blood. 

These  are  the  first  thoughts  which  strike  us 
about  the  Precious  Blood.  They  are  the  ordinary 
considerations  which  our  faith  has  made  familiar 
to  us.  We  shall  have  to  return  to  them  again  in 
a  different  connection ;  and  upon  some  of  them. 
we  must  enlarge  in  another  place.  A  minuter 
acquaintance  with  Christian  doctrine  teaches  us 
much  more.  Some  little  of  this  much  must  be 
introduced  here  for  the  sake  of  clearness  and  in 
order  that  we  may  better  understand  what  has  to 

follow. 

The  Precious  Blood  was  assumed  directly  to  our 
Blessed  Lord's  Divine  Person  from  his  immacu- 
late Mother.  It  was  not  taken  merely  to  his 
BodjT,  so  that  his  Body  was  directly  assumed  to 
the  Person  of  the  Word,  and  his  Blood  only  in- 
directly or  mediately  as  part  of  his  Body.  The 
Blood,  which  was  the  predetermined  price  of  our 
redemption,  rested  directly  and  immediately  on 
the  Divine  Person,  and  thus  entered  into  the  very 
highest  and  most  unspeakable  degree  of  the 
Hypostatic  Union, — if  we  may  speak  of  degrees 
in  such  an  adorably  simple  mystery.  It  was  not 
merely  a  concomitant  of  the  Flesh,  an  inseparable 
accident  of  the  Body.  The  Blood  itself,  as  Blood, 
was  assumed  directly  by  the  Second  Person  of  the 
Holy  Trinity.  It  came  also  from  Mary's  blood. 
Mary's  blood  was  the  material  out  of  which  the 
Hcly  Ghost,  the  Third  Person  of  the  Most  Holy 
Trinity,  the   artificer  of   the   Sacred   Humanity, 


10         XHE   MYSTERY   OF   THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD 

fashioned  the  Blood  of  Jesus.  Here  "\ve  see  how 
needful  to  the  joy  and  gladness  of  our  devotion 
is  the  doctrine  of  the  Immaculate  Conception. 
Who  could  bear  to  think  that  the  matter  of  the 
Precious  Blood  had  ever  been  itself  corrupted 
with  the  taint  of  sin,  that  it  had  once  been  part 
of  the  devil's  kingdom,  that  what  was  to  supply 
the  free  price  of  our  redemption  was  once  en- 
slaved to  God's  darkest,  foulest  enemy  ?  Is  it  not 
indeed  an  endless  daily  jubilee  to  us,  that  the 
Church  has  laid  upon  us  as  an  article  of  our  faith 
that  sweet  truth  which  the  instincts  of  our  devo- 
tion had  so  long  made  a  real  part  of  our  belief? 

Moreover,  there  is  some  portion  of  the  Precious 
Blood  which  once  was  Mary's  own  blood,  and 
which  remains  still  in  our  Blessed  Lord,  incredibly 
exalted  by  its  union  with  his  Divine  Person,  yet 
still  the  same.  This  portion  of  himself,  it  is 
piously  believed,  has  not  been  allowed  to  undergo 
the  usual  changes  of  human  substance.  At  this 
moment  in  heaven  he  retains  something  which 
once  was  his  Mother's,  and  which  is  possibly 
visible,  as  such,  to  the  saints  and  angels.  He 
vouchsafed  at  Mass  to  show  to  St.  Ignatius  the 
very  part  of  the  Host  which  had  once  belonged  to 
the  substance  of  Mary.  It  may  have  a  distinct 
and  singular  beauty  in  heaven,  where  by  his  com- 
passion it  may  one  da}T  be  our  blessed  lot  to  see 
it  and  adore  it.  But,  with  the  exception  of  this 
portion  of  it,  the  Precious  Blood  was  a  growing 
thing.  It  increased  daily,  as  he  increased  in  sizo 
and  age.  It  was  nourished  from  his  Mother's 
breast.  It  was  fed  from  the  earthly  food  which 
he  condescended  to  take.     During  his  three-and 


TIIE    MYSTERY   OF   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD.         41 

thirty  years  it  received  thousands  of  increments 
and  augmentations.  But  each  one  of  those  aug- 
mentations was  assumed  directly  to  his  Divine 
Person.  It  was  not  merely  diluted  by  that  which 
had  existed  before.  It  did  not  share  in  the  ILypo- 
static  Union  in  any  lower  degree.  The  last  drop 
of  Blood  made  in  him  by  the  laws  of  human  life, 
perhaps  while  he  was  hanging  on  the  Cross,  was 
equally  exalted,  equally  divine,  equally  adorable, 
with  the  first  priceless  drops  which  he  drew  from 
his  Blessed  Mother. 

Our  dearest  Lord  was  full  and  true  man.  He 
was  flesh  of  our  flesh,  and  bone  of  our  bone;  and 
his  incomparable  Soul,  although  it  was  incom- 
parable, was  simply  and  veritably  a  human  soul. 
Every  thing  in  his  human  substance  was  so  ex- 
alted by  its  union  with  his  Divine  Person  as  to  be 
adorable.  Yet  it  was  only  his  Blood  which  was 
to  redeem  the  world ;  and  it  was  only  his  Blood 
as  shed  which  was  to  do  so,  and  it  was  only  his 
Blood  as  shed  in  death  which  could  be  the  price  of 
our  redemption.  The  Blood  shed  at  the  Circum- 
cision was  adorable.  The  Blood  shed  in  Gethse- 
mane  was  adorable.  If  it  be  true,  as  some  con- 
templatives  have  seen  in  vision,  that  he  sweated 
Blood  at  various  times  in  his  Infancy  because  of 
his  sight  of  sin  and  of  his  Father's  anger,  that 
Blood  also  was  adorable.  But  it  was  the  Blood 
shed  upon  the  Cross,  or  at  least  the  Blood  shed  in 
the  process  of  dying,  which  was  the  ransom  of 
our  sins.  Throughout  the  whole  of  the  triduo  of 
the  Passion,  all  his  Blood,  wherever  it  had  been 
shed  and  wherever  it  was  sprinkled,  remained 
ussumed  to  his  Divinity,  in  union  with  his  Divine 

4* 


42  THE    MYSTERY    OF    THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

Person,  just  as  his  soulless  Bod}7  did,  and  there- 
fore was  to  be  worshipped  with  divine  worship, 
with  the  same  adoration  as  the  living  and  eternal 
God.  At  the  Resurrection,  when  his  Precious 
Blood  had  been  eollected  by  the  ministry  of  the 
angels,  and  he  united  it  once  more  to  his  Body  as 
he  rose,  some  of  it  remained  unassumed.  This 
perhaps  was  for  the  consolation  of  his  Mother,  or 
for  the  enriching  of  the  Church  with  the  most 
inestimable  of  relics.  This  was  the  case  with  the 
Blood  on  the  veil  of  Veronica,  on  the  holy  AVind- 
ing-Sheet,  on  some  portions  of  the  Cross,  and  on 
the  Thorns  and  Nails.  But  this  Blood,  which 
was  not  reassumed  at  the  Resurrection,  instantly 
lost  its  union  with  his  Divine  Person,  ceased  to 
be  what  is  strictly  called  the  Precious  Blood,  lost 
its  right  to  absolute  adoration,  and  became  only 
an  intensely  holy  relic,  to  be  venerated  with  a 
very  high  worship,  but  not  to  be  worshipped  as 
divine  or  adored  as  the  Blood  of  God.  It  was  no 
longer  part  of  himself.  But  the  Blood  in  the 
chalice  is  the  Blood  of  the  living  Jesus  in  heaven. 
It  is  the  Blood  shed  in  the  Passion,  reassumed  at 
the  Resurrection,  borne  up  to  heaven  in  the 
Ascension,  placed  at  the  Right  Hand  of  the 
Father  there  in  its  consummate  glory  and  beauti- 
fied  immortality.  Thus  it  is  the  very  Blood  of 
God;  and  it  is  the  whole  of  it,  containing  that 
portion  which  he  had  originally  assumed  from 
Mary. 

Miraculous  Blood  is  not  the  Precious  Blood 
Neither  is  it  like  the  unassumed  Blood  of  the 
Passion.  For  that  had  once  been  Precious  Blood, 
and  had  only  ceased  to  be  so  through    Jic  special 


THE    MYSTERY   OF   TIIE   TRECIOUS    BLOOD.         43 

will  of  our  Lord,  whereby  lie  willed  not  to  re- 
assume  it  tit  the  Resurrection.  The  Host  has 
miraculously  bled  at  mass,  to  reassure  men's  faith 
or  to  cause  a  reformation  in  their  lives.  It  has 
hied  in  the  hands  of  Jews  and  heretics,  as  if  re- 
senting sacrilege,  and  striking  awe  into  their 
Bonis,  like  the  deep  fear  which  fell  upon  Jerusalem 
at  the  Passion.  Crucifixes  have  sweated  Blood 
to  convert  sinners,  or  to  portend  some  public 
calamities,  or  to  show  forth  symbolically  the 
ceaseless  sympathy  of  our  blessed  Lord  with  his 
suffering  Church.  But  this  is  not  Precious  Blood, 
nur  has  it  ever  been  Precious  Blood.  It  has  never 
lived  in  our  Lord.  It  is  greatly  to  be  venerated, 
inasmuch  as  it  is  a  miraculous  production  of  God; 
and  it  appeals  especially  to  the  reverence  of  the 
faithful,  because  of  its  being  appointed  to  repre- 
sent in  figure  the  Precious  Blood.  If  the  angel, 
who  passed  at  midnight  over  Egypt  to  slay  the 
first-born,  reverenced  the  blood  of  the  Paschal 
lamb  sprinkled  on  the  door-posts  of  the  Israelites, 
simply  because  it  was  a  type  of  the  Blood  of 
Jesus,  much  more  should  we  reverence  the  mira- 
culous Blood  which  issues  from  the  Host  or  from 
the  Crucifix,  as  a  higher  and  a  holier  thing  than 
the  symbolic  blood  of  animals.  Nevertheless  it  is 
not  Precious  Blood,  nor  is  it  to  be  adored  with 
divine  worship. 

Perhaps  this  is  enough  to  say  of  the  doctrine 
of  the  Precious  Blood.  There  are  many  other 
interesting  questions  connected  with  it.  But  they 
are  hard  to  understand;  and,  although  no  minutest 
detail  of  scholastic  theology  is  otner  tban  fresh 
fuel  to  our  love  of  God,  yet   it  wou'.d    not  suit 


44         THE    MYSTERY   OP   THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

either  the  brevity  or  the  plainness  of  this  Treatiso 
to  enter  upon  them  here.  How  shall  we  ever 
raise  our  love  up  to  the  height  of  the  doctrine 
which  we  have  put  forth  already?  The  Precious 
Blood  is  God's  daily  gift,  nay,  rather  we  might 
call  it  his  incessant  gift  to  us.  For,  if  grace  is 
coming  to  us  incessantly,  save  when  we  sleep, 
it  comes  to  us  in  view  of  the  Precious  Blood,  and 
because  of  it.  But  who  can  estimate  the  wonder- 
fulness  of  such  a  gift?  It  is  the  Blood  of  God. 
It  is  not  the  giving  to  us  of  new  hearts,  or  of 
immensely  increased  powers,  or  of  the  ability  to 
work  miracles  and  raise  the  dead.  It  is  not  the 
bestowing  upon  us  of  angelic  natures.  It  is  some- 
thing of  far  greater  price  than  all  this  would  be. 
It  is  the  Blood  of  God.  It  is  the  created  life 
of  the  Uncreated.  It  is  a  human  fountain  opened 
as  it  were  in  the  very  centre  of  the  Divine 
Nature.  It  is  a  finite  tiling,  with  a  known  origin 
and  an  ascertained  date,  of  a  price  as  infinite  as 
the  Divine  Person  who  has  assumed  it.  To  us 
creatures  the  adorable  majesty  of  the  Undivided 
Trinity  is  an  inexhaustible  treasure-house  of  gifts. 
They  are  poured  out  upon  us  in  the  most  lavish 
prodigality,  and  with  the  most  affecting  display 
of  love.  They  are  beautiful  beyond  compare ; 
and  they  are  endlessly  diversified,  yet  endlessby 
adapted  to  the  singularities  of  each  heart  and 
soul.  Yet  what  gift  do  the  Divine  Persons  give 
us,  which  has  more  of  their  own  sweetness  in  it, 
than  the  Precious  Blood  ?  It  has  ir  it  that 
yearning  and  tenderness  which  belong  to  the 
power  of  the  Father,  that  magnificent  prodigality 
which  marks  the  wisdom  of  the   Son,   and   that 


THE    MYSTERY    OF   THE   PRECIOUS    HLOOD.         45 

refreshing  fire  which  characterizes  the  love  of  the 

Holy  Ghost. 

It  is  also  a  revelation  to  us  of  the  character  of 
God.  Nothing  on  earth  tells  us  so  much  of  him, 
or  tells  it  so  plainly  and  so  endearingly.  How 
adorable  must  be  the  exactness  of  his  justice,  how 
unattainable  the  standard  of  his  sanctity,  how 
absorbing  the  blissful  gulfs  of  his  uncreated 
purity,  if  the  Precious  Blood  is  to  be  the  sole 
fitting  ransom  for  the  sins  of  men,  the  one  di- 
vinely-chosen satisfaction  to  his  outraged  Majesty! 
Yet  what  a  Btrange  wisdom  in  such  an  astonish- 
ing  invention,  what  an  unintelligible  condescen- 
sion, what  a  mysterious  fondness  of  creative  love  ! 
The  more  we  meditate  upon  the  Precious  Blood, 
the  more  strange  does  it  appear  as  a  device  of 
infinite  love.  While  we  are  really  getting  to  un- 
derstand it  more,  our  understanding  of  it  appears 
to  crow  less.  "When  we  see  a  divine  work  at  a 
distance,  its  dimensions  do  not  seem  so  colossal  as 
we  find  them  to  be  in  reality  when  we  come 
nearer.  The  Precious  Blood  is  such  a  wonderful 
revelation  of  God  that  it  partakes  in  a  measure 
of  his  incomprehensibility.  But  it  is  also  a  mar- 
vellous revelation  of  the  enormity  of  sin.  Next 
to  a  practical  knowledge  of  God,  there  is  nothing 
which  it  more  concerns  us  to  know  and  to  realize 
than  the  exceeding  sinfulness  of  sin.  The  deeper 
that  knowledge  is,  the  higher  will  be  the  fabric 
of  our  holiness.  Hence  a  true  understanding  of 
the  overwhelming  guilt  and  shame  of  sin  is  one 
of  God's  greatest  gifts.  But  in  reality  this  reve- 
lation of  the  sirfulness  of  sin  is  only  another  kind 
of  revelation  of  God.     It  is  by  the  height  of  his 


£6  THE    MYSTERY   OF    THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

perfections  that  we  measure  the  depths  of  sin. 
Its  opposition  to  his  unspeakable  holiness,  the 
amount  of  its  outrage  against  his  glorious  justice, 
and  the  intcnsit}T  of  his  hatred  of  it,  are  mani- 
fested by  the  infinity  of  the  sacrifice  which  he  has 
required.  If  we  try  to  picture  to  ourselves  what 
we  should  have  thought  of  God  and  sin  if  Jesus 
had  not  shed  his  Blood,  we  shall  see  what  a  foun- 
tain of  heavenly  science,  what  an  effulgence  of 
supernatural  revelation,  the  Precious  Blood  has 
been  to  us. 

No  doubt  it  was  partly  this  power  of  revelation 
which  made  our  dearest  Lord  so  impatient  to 
shed  his  Blood.  He  longed  to  make  his  Father 
known,  and  so  to  increase  his  Father's  glory. 
He  knew  that  we  must  know  God  in  order  to  love 
him,  and  then  that  our  love  of  him  would  in  its 
turn  increase  our  knowledge  of  him.  He  3-carned 
also  with  an  unutterable  love  of  us;  and  this  also 
entered  into  his  Heart  as  another  reason  for  his 
affectionate  impatience.  At  all  events,  he  has 
been  pleased  to  reveal  himself  to  us  as  impatient 
to  shed  his  Blood.  If  habits  of  meditation  and 
a  study  of  the  Gospels  have  transferred  to  our 
souls  a  true  portrait  of  Jesus  as  he  was  on  earth, 
this  impatience  will  seem  a  very  striking  mystery. 
There  was  ordinarily  about  our  Blessed  Lord  an 
atmosphere  of  quite  unearthly  calmness.  His 
human  will  seemed  almost  without  human  ac- 
tivity. It  lay  still  in  the  lap  of  the  will  of  God. 
It  was  revealed  to  Mary  of  Agreda  that  he  never 
exercised  choice,  except  in  the  choosing  of  suffer- 
ing. This  one  disclosure  is  enough  to  give  us 
a  complete  picture  of  his  inward  life.     Yet  there 


the  mystery  of  the  precious  blood.      47 

was  an  eagerness,  a  semblance  of  precipitation, 
a  stimulating  desire  for  the  shedding  of  his  Blood, 
which  stand  alone  and  aj  art  in  the  narrative  of 
his  Thirty-three  Years.  With  desire  had  ho  de- 
sired to  communicate  with  his  chosen  few  in  the 
Blessed  Sacrifice  of  the  Mass,  wherein  his  Blood 
is  mystically  shed.  lie  shed  it  in  that  awful, 
miraculous  reality  before  he  shed  it  upon  Calvary, 
as  if  he  could  not  brook  the  slowness  of  human 
cruelty,  which  did  not  lay  hands  upon  him  so 
swiftly  as  his  love  desired.-  He  was  straitened  in 
himself  by  his  impatience  for  his  baptism  of 
Blood;  and  he  bedewed  the  ground  at  Gethse- 
mane  with  those  priceless  drops,  as  if  he  could 
not  even  wait  one  night  for  the  violence  of  Cal- 
vary. It  seemed  as  if  the  relief  and  satisfaction, 
which  it  was  to  him  to  shed  his  Blood,  were 
almost  an  alleviation  of  the  bitterness  of  his  Pas- 
sion. This  impatience  is  in  itself  a  revelation  to 
us  of  the  yearnings  of  his  Sacred  Heart. 

The  prodigality,  also,  with  which  he  shed  his 
Blood,  stands  alone  and  apart  in  his  life.  He  was 
sparing  of  his  words.  He  spake  seldom,  and  he 
spake  briefly.  The  shortness  of  his  Ministry  is 
almost  a  difficulty  to  our  minds.  It  was  the 
instinct  of  his  holiness  to  hide  itself.  This  was 
one  of  the  communications  of  his  Divine  Katuro 
to  his  Human.  Even  his  miracles  were  compara- 
tively few;  and  he  said  that  his  saints  after  him 
should  work  greater  miracles  than  his.  Yet  in  the 
shedding  of  his  Blood  he  Avas  spendthrift,  pro- 
digal, wasteful.  As  his  impatience  to  shed  it 
represents  to  us  the,  adorable  impetuosity  of  the 
Most  Holy  Trinity  t(   communicate  himself  to  hia 


48         THE    MYSTERY   OF   THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

creatures,  so  his  prodigality  in  shedding  it  sha- 
dows forth  the  exuberant  magnificence  and  libe- 
rality of  God.  During  the  triduo  of  his  Passion 
ho  shed  it  in  all  manner  of  places  and  in  all 
manner  of  ways;  and  he  continued  to  shed  it 
even  after  he  was  dead,  as  if  he  could  not  rest 
until  the  last  drop  had  been  poured  out  for  the 
creatures  whom  he  so  incomprehensibly  loved. 
Yet,  while  he  thus  carelessly,  or  rather  purposely, 
parted  with  it,  how  he  must  have  loved  his  Pre- 
cious Blood  !  What  loves  are  there  on  earth  to  be 
compared  with  the  love  of  his  Divine  Nature  for 
his  Human  Nature,  or  the  love  of  his  ever-blessed 
Soul  for  his  Body  ?  Moreover,  he  must  have  loved 
his  Blood  with  a  peculiar  love,  beeause  it  was  the 
speeially  appointed  ransom  of  the  world.  His 
love  of  his  dearest  Mother  is  the  only  love  which 
approaches  to  his  love  of  the  Precious  Blood;  and, 
rightly  considered,  is  not  one  love  enclosed  within 
the  other  ? 

He  has  continued  the  same  prodigality  of  his 
Blood  in  the  Church  to  this  day.  He  foresaw  then 
that  he  should  do  so;  and  it  was  part  of  his  love 
of  that  fountain  of  our  redemption,  that  he  beheld 
with  exquisite  delight  its  ceaseless  and  abundant 
flowing  through  the  ages  which  were  yet  to  come. 
There  is  something  almost  indiscriminate  in  the 
generosity  of  the  Precious  Blood.  It  is  poured  in 
oceans  over  the  world,  bathing  more  souls  than  it 
seems  to  have  been  meant  for,  only  that  in  truth, 
it  was  meant  for  all.  It  appears  not  to  regard  the 
probabilities  of  its  being  used,  or  appreciated,  or 
welcomed.  It  goes  in  floods  through  the  seven 
mighty  channels  of  the   Sacraments.     It   breaks 


THE    MYSTERY   OF   TIIE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD.         49 

their  bounds,  as  if  thc}T  could  not  contain  the  im- 
petuosity of  its  torrents.  It  lies  like  n  superincum- 
bent ocean  of  sanctifying  grace  over  the  Church. 
It  runs  over  in  profuse  excess,  and  irrigates  even 
the  deserts  which  lie  outside  the  Church.  It  goes 
to  sinners  as  well  as  saints. .  Nay,  it  even  looks  as 
if  it  had  a  propension  and  attraction  to  sinners 
more  than  to  other  men.  It  is  falling  forever  like 
a  copious  fiery  rain  upon  the  lukewarm.  It  rests 
on  the  souls  of  hardened  apostates,  as  if  it  hoped 
to  sink  in  in  time.  Its  miraculous  action  in  the 
Church  is  literally  incessant.  In  the  Sacraments, 
in  separate  graces,  in  hourly  conversions,  in  multi- 
plied death-beds,  in  releases  from  purgatory  every 
moment,  in  countless  augmentations  of  grace  in 
countless  souls,  in  far-off  indistinguishable  preludes 
and  drawings  toward  the  faith,  this  most  dear 
.Blood  of  Jesus  is  the  manifold  life  of  the  world. 
Every  pulse  which  beats  in  it  is  an  intense  jubilee 
to  him.  It  is  forever  setting  him  on  fire  with  fresh 
love  of  us  his  creatures.  It  is  forever  filling  him 
with  a  new  and  incredible  gladness,  which  we  can- 
not think  of  without  amazement  and  adoration. 
Oh  that  he  would  give  us  one  spark  of  that  immense 
love  of  his  Precious  Blood  which  he  himself  is 
feeling  so  blissfully  this  hour  in  heaven ! 

Such  is  the  mystery  of  the  Precious  Blood.  It 
makes  the  poor  fallen  earth  more  beautiful  than 
the  Paradise  of  old.  Its  streams  are  winding  their 
way  everywhere  all  over  the  earth.  The  rivers  of 
Eden  are  not  to  be  compared  to  them  for  fruitful 
ness.  Poets  have  loved  the  music  of  the  mountain 
stream,  as  it  tinkled  down  the  hills  amidst  the 
stones  or  murmured  under  leafy  shades.    Scripturo 

1>  5 


50  THE    MYSTERY    OF   THE    TREClOUS   BLOOP-. 

speaks  of  tho  Voice  of  God  as  the  voice  of  many 
waters.  So  is  it  with  the  Precious  Blood.  It  has 
a  voice  which  God  hears,  speaking  better  things 
than  the  blood  of  Abel,  more  than  restoring  to  him 
again  the  lost  music  of  his  primeval  creation.  Jn 
our  ears  also  does  it  murmur  sweetly,  evermore 
and  evermore,  in  sorrows,  in  absolutions,  in  com- 
munions, in  sermons,  and  in  all  holy  joys.  It  will 
never  leave  us  now.  For  at  last,  when  it  has  led  us 
to  the  brink  of  heaven,  and  when,  in  the  boundless 
far-flashing  magnificence,  the  steadfast  splendors 
and  unfathomable  depths  of  the  Uncreated  joy  of 
God  lie  out  before  us,  oceandike  and  infinite,  that 
Blood  will  still  flow  round  us,  and  sing  to  us  be- 
yond angelic  skill,  with  a  voice  like  that  of  Jesus, 
which  when  once  heard  is  never  to  be  forgotten, 
that  word  of  him  whose  Heart's  Blood  it  is,  Well 
done,  thou  good  and  faithful  servant!  enter  thou 
into  the  joy  of  thy  Lord!  What  is  the  life  in 
heaven,  but  an  everlasting  Te  Deum  before  the 
Face  of  God?  But  there  also,  as  now  in  our  Te 
Deum  upon  earth,  we  shall  have  a  special  joy,  a 
special  moving  of  our  love,  when  we  call  ourselves 
"redeemed  with  Precious  Blood ;"  and,  as  we  do 
now  in  church,  so  there  in  the  innermost  courts  of 
our  Father's  House,  we  shall  only  sa}?  the  words 
upon  our  knees,  with  a  separate  gladness,  and  a 
separate  depth  of  adoration. 


THE    NECESSITY   OF   THE    TRECIOUS   BLOOD.        51 


CHAPTEE  II. 

THE    NECESSITY   OF   THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  feel  as  we  ought  to  do 
about  eternal  things.  "We  are  surrounded  by  the 
sights  and  sounds  of  this  short  earthly  life.  We 
judge  of  things,  if  not  by  appearances,  at  least  by 
their  earthly  importance.  We  cannot  disentangle 
ourselves  from  the  impressions  which  earth  makes 
upon  us.  We  are  forced  to  measure  tilings  by  a 
standard  which  \vc  know  to  be  untrue,  but  which 
we  are  so  accustomed  to  that  we  cannot  even 
think  by  any  other  standard.  Eternity  is  simply 
a  word  to  us;  and  it  is  exceedingly  hard  to  make 
it  more  than  a  word.  Thus,  when  we  try  to  bring 
home  to  uurselves  or  to  others  the  immense  im- 
portance of  eternal  things,  and  the  extreme  tri- 
viality of  all  temporal  things  which  are  not  simply 
made  to  minister  to  eternal  things,  we  find  our- 
selves in  a  difficulty.  If  we  speak  of  them  in 
common  words,  we  convey  false  ideas.  If  wo  use 
high-sounding  language  and  deal  in  superlatives,  a 
sense  of  unreality  conies  upon  ourselves,  and  still 
more  upon  our  hearers ;  and  we  seem  to  be  exag- 
gerating, even  when  what  we  say  is  far  below  the 
mark.  Time  alone  enables  us  in  some  degree  to 
realize  the  importance  of  eternal  things.  A  striking 
expression  nury  rouse  our  attention.  But  eternal 
things,  in  order  to  be  fruitful  and  practical,  muat 


52        THE    NECESSITY   OF   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

grow  into  us  by  frequent  prayer  and  long  fami- 
liarity. Even  then  we  fall  far  short  of  the  mark. 
Even  then  we  get  false  ideas,  and,  becoming  used 
to  them,  are  unable  to  substitute  true  ones  in  their 
place.  It  is  almost  impossible  for  us  truly  to 
realize  the  fact  that  lifelong  pain  or  exuberant 
health,  ample  riches  or  bitter  poverty,  unintcr- 
mittina:  success  or  incessant  failure,  are  matters  of 
perfect  unimportance  and  of  absolute  indifference, 
except  so  far  as  they  concern  the  salvation  of  our 
souls.  We  recognise  the  impossibility  by  seeing 
how  men  who  talk  and  believe  rightly  fall  far 
short  both  of  their  faith  and  their  words,  even 
when  they  are  acting  up  to  the  highest  standard 
in  their  power.  We  are  placed  in  the  same  diffi- 
culty now,  when  we  want  to  realize  truly  the 
necessity  of  the  Precious  Blood.  It  is  more  neces- 
sary than  we  can  say  or  think.  What  would  come 
of  being  without  it  is  inconceivable  by  us.  When 
we  have  said  that,  we  have  said  all  we  can  say. 
So,  as  time  alone  will  make  it  familiar  to  us,  we 
must  say  it  in  many  different  ways,  and  look  at  it 
from  many  different  points  of  view,  and  repeat  it 
to  ourselves  as  if  we  were  learning  a  lesson.  This 
will  enable  us  to  gain  time,  and  will  answer  better 
than  big  words  or  unusual  metaphors. 

The  most  recollected  saint  and  the  most  thought, 
ful  theologian,  do  what  they  will,  live  in  the  world 
all  day  without  being  able  to  realize  how  much, 
and  in  what  ways,  they  are  indebted  to  God,  re- 
ceiving from  him,  living  upon  him,  using  him,  and 
immersed  in  him,  nor  how  indispensable  he  is  to 
us.  So  is  it  in  the  spiritual  world  with  Jesus.  It 
<b  a  wonder  that  he  ever  came  amon.o-  us.     Yet  ho 


THE    NECESSITY    OF   THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD.        53 

is  simply  indispensable  to  us.  We  could  in  no 
wise  do  without  him.  We  want  him  at  every 
turn,  at  every  moment.  It  is  the  wisdom  of  life, 
as  well  as  its  joy,  to  be  always  feeling  this  great 
need  of  Jesus.  A  true  Christian  feels  that  he 
could  no  more  live  for  an  hour  without  Jesus,  than 
he  could  live  for  an  hour  without  air  or  under  the 
water.  There  is  something  delightful  in  this  sense 
of  utter  dependence  upon  Jesus.  It  is  our  only 
rest,  our  only  liberty  in  the  world.  It  is  the 
bondage  of  our  imperfection  that  we  cannot  be 
directly  and  actually  thinking  of  Jesus  all  day  and 
night.  Yet  it  is  astonishing  how  near  we  tnay  come 
to  this.  Our  very  sleep  at  last  becomes  subject  to 
the  thought  of  Jesus,  and  saturated  with  it.  It  is 
part  of  the  gladness  of  growing  older,  not  only  that 
we  are  thereby  drawing  nearer  to  our  first  sight 
of  him,  but  that  we  feel  our  dependence  upon  him 
more  and  more.  We  have  learned  more  about  him. 
We  have  had  a  longer  and  more  varied  experience 
of  him.  Our  love  of  him  has  become  more  of  a 
passion,  which,  b}-  a  little  effort,  promises  at  some 
not  very  distant  day  to  be  dominant  and  supreme. 
The  love  of  Jesus  never  can  be  an  uncrrowinic  love. 
It  must  grow,  if  it  does  not  die  out.  In  our  phy- 
sical life,  as  we  grow  older,  we  become  more  sen- 
sible to  cold  and  wind,  to  changes  of  place  and  to 
alterations  of  the  weather.  So,  as  we  grow  older 
m  our  spiritual  life,  we  become  more  sensitive  to 
the  presence  of  Jesus,  to  the  necessity  of  him,  and 
to  his  indispensable  sweetness.  A  constantly  in- 
creasing sensible  love  of  our  dearest  Loi-d  is  the 
safest  mark  of  our  growth  in  holiness,  and  the 

5* 


54        TIIE    NECESSITY   OF    THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

most  tranquillizing  prophecy  of  our  final  perse- 
verance. 

What  would  the  world  be  without  Jesus?  Wo 
may  perhaps  have  sometimes  made  pictures  to 
ourselves  of  the  day  of  judgment.  We  may  have 
imagined  the  storms  above  and  the  earthquakes 
underneath,  the  sun  and  the  moon  darkened,  and 
the  stars  falling  from  heaven,  the  fire  raging  over 
the  face  of  the  earth,  men  crying  to  the  mountains 
and  rocks  to  fall  upon  them  and  hide  them,  and  in 
the  masses  of  the  eastern  clouds  Jesus  coming  to 
judge  the  world.  We  think  it  appropriate  to  add 
to  the  picture  every  feature  of  physical  tumult  and 
desolation,  every  wildest  unchaining  of  the  ele- 
ments, although  doubtless  the  catastrophe  of  that 
day  of  horrors  will  follow  the  grand  uniformity  of 
a  natural  law,  even  amidst  the  impetuosity  of  its 
convulsions.  Yet  the  misery  and  confusion  of  earth 
at  that  day  will  have  less  of  real  horror  in  it  than 
the  earth  without  Jesus  would  have,  even  though 
the  sun  were  shining,  and  the  flowers  blooming, 
and  the  birds  singing.  An  earth  without  hope  or 
happiness,  without  love  or  peace,  the  past  a  burden, 
the  present  a  weariness,  the  future  a  shapeless 
terror, — such  would  the  earth  be,  if  by  impossibility 
there  were  no  Jesus.  Indeed,  it  is  only  in  such  a 
general  way  that  we  can  conceive  what  the  world 
would  be  without  him.  We  can  make  no  picture 
to  ourselves  of  the  real  horror.  His  Five  Wounds 
are  pleading  forever  at  the  Right  Hand  of  the 
Father.  They  are  holding  back-  the  divine  indigna- 
tion, They  are  satisfying  the  divine  justice.  They 
are  moving  the  divine  compassion.  Even  temporal 
blcHsinecs  come  from  them.     They  are  bridling  the 


THE    NECESSITY   OF   THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.        55 

earthquake  and  the  storm,  the  pestilence  and  1  he 
famine,  and  a  thousand  other  temporal  conse- 
quences of  sin,  which  we  do  not  know  of,  or  so 
much  as  suspect.  Besides  this,  Jesus  is  bound  up 
with  our  innermost  lives.  lie  is  more  to  us  than 
the  blood  in  our  veins.  AVe  know  that  he  is  indis- 
pensable to  us;  but  we  do  not  dream  how  indis- 
pensable he  is. 

There  is  not  a  circumstance  of  life,  in  which  we 
could  do  without  Jesus.  When  sorrow  comes 
upon  us,  how  should  we  bear  it  without  him? 
What  feature  of  consolation  is  there  about  the 
commonest  human  grief"  which  is  not  ministered 
by  faith,  or  hope,  or  love  ?  We  cannot  exagge- 
rate the  utter  moral  destitution  of  a  fallen  world 
without  redeeming  grace.  With  the  apostate 
angels  that  destitution  is  simply  an  eternal  hell. 
Let  the  child  of  a  few  weeks  lie  like  a  gathered 
lily,  white,  cold,  faded,  dead,  before  the  eyes  of 
the  fond  mother  who  bore  it  but  a  while  ago;  and 
how  blank  is  the  woe  in  her  heart,  if  the  waters 
of  baptism  have  not  passed  upon  it !  Yet  what 
are  those  waters,  but  the  Blood  of  Jesus  ?  Now 
she  can  sit  and  think,  and  be  thankful  even  while 
she  is  weeping,  and  there  can  be  smiles  through 
her  tears,  which,  like  the  rainbows,  are  signs  of 
God's  covenant  with  his  people;  for  she  has  vo- 
lumes of  sweet  things  to  think,  and  bright  visions 
in  her  mind,  and  the  sounds  of  angelic  music  in 
her  soul's  ear;  and  these  things  are  not  fancies, 
but  faiths,  knowledges,  infallible  assurances.  Even 
if  her  child  were  unbaptized,  dismal  as  the 
thought  is  that  it  can  never  sec  God,  its  eternal 
destiny  is  for  the  sake  of  Jesus  shorn  of  all  the 


50        THE    NECESSITY   OF   TIIE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

sensible  pains  and  horrors  -which  else  would  have 
befallen  it.  It  OAves  the  natural  blessedness,  which 
it  will  one  day  enjoy,  to  the  merits  of  our  dearest 
Lord.  It  is  better  even  for  the  babes  that  are  not 
his,  that  he  himself  was  once  the  Babe  of  Beth- 
lehem. 

Sorrow  without  Christ  is  not  to  be  endured. 
Such  a  lot  would  be  worse  than  that  of  the  beasts 
of  the  field,  because  the  possession  of  reason  would 
be  an  additional  unhappiness.  The  same  is  true 
of  sickness  and  of  pain.  What  is  the  meaning  of 
pain,  except  the  purification  of  our  soul?  Who 
could  bear  it  for  years,  if  there  were  no  signifi- 
cance in  it,  no  future  for  it,  no  real  work  which  it 
was  actually  occupied  in  doing?  Here  also  the 
possession  of  reason  would  act  to  our  disadvan  ■ 
tage;  for  it  would  render  the  patience  of  beasts 
impossible  to  us.  The  long,  pining,  languishing 
sick-bed,  with  its  interminable  nights  and  days, 
its  wakeful  memories,  its  keen  susceptibilities,  its 
crowded  and  protracted  inward  biography,  its 
burdensome  epochs  of  monotony, — what  would 
this  be,  if  we  knew  not  the  Son  of  God,  if  Jesus 
never  had  been  man,  if  his  grace  of  endurance 
had  not  actually  gone  out  of  his  Heart  into  ours 
that  we  might  love  even  while  we  murmured,  and 
believe  most  in  mercy  when  it  was  showing  itself 
least  merciful  ? 

In  poverty  and  hardship,  in  the  accesses  of 
temptation,  in  the  intemperate  ardors  of  youth 
or  the  cynical  fatigue  of  age,  in  the  successive 
failures  of  our  plans,  in  the  disappointments  of 
our  affections,  in  every  crisis  and  revolution  of 
life,  Jesus  seems  so  necessary  to  us  that  it  appears 


THE   NECESSITY    OP    TIIE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.        57 

as  if  lie  grew  more  necessary  every  year,  and  were 
more  wanted  to-day  than  he  was  yesterday,  and 

would  be  still  more  urgently  wanted  on  the  mor- 
row. But,  it'  he  is  thus  indispensable  in  life,  how 
much  more  will  he  be  indispensable  in  death  ! 
Who  could  dare  to  die  without  him?  What  would 
death  be,  if  be  bad  not  so  strangely  and  so  gra- 
ciously died  himself?  Yet  what  is  death  com- 
pared with  judgment  ?  Surely  most  of  all  be  will 
be  wanted  then.  Wanted!  Ob,  it  is  something 
more  than  a  want,  when  so  unspeakable  a  ruin  is 
inevitably  befoi-e  us  !  AVant  is  a  poor  word  to 
use,  when  the  alternative  is  everlasting  woe. 
Dearest  Lord  !  the  light  of  the  sun  and  the  air 
of  heaven  are  not  so  needful  to  us  as  thou  art; 
and  our  happiness,  not  merely  our  greatest,  but 
our  only,  happiness,  is  in  this  dear  necessity! 

Nobody  is  without  Jesus  in  the  world.  Even 
the  lost  in  hell  are  suffering  less  than  they  should 
have  suffered,  because  of  the  ubiquity  of  his 
powerful  Blood.  Yet  there  are  some  nations  who 
Are  so  far  without  him,  as  to  have  no  saving 
knowledge  of  him.  Alas  !  there  are  still  heathen 
lands  in  this  fair  world.  There  are  tribes  and 
nations  who  Avorsbip  stocks  and  stones,  who  make 
gods  of  the  unseen  devils,  who  tremble  before  the 
powers  of  nature  as  if  they  were  at  once  almighty 
and  malicious,  or  who  live  in  perpetual  fear  of  the 
souls  of  the  dead.  There  are  some,  whose  sweet- 
est social  relations  are  embittered  by  the  terrors 
and  panics  of  their  own  false  religions;  and  the 
innocent  sunshine  of  delightful  climates  is  not 
unfrequently  polluted  by  human  sacrifices.  Yet 
these  people   dwell  in   some  of  the  loveliest  pop- 


58        TIIE    NECESSITY   OF   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

tions  of  man's  inheritance.  Amidst  the  savago 
sylvan  sublimities  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  on 
the  eastern  declivities  of  the  magnificent  Andes, 
in  the  glorious  gorges  of  the  Himalayas,  in  the 
flowery  coral-islands  of  the  Pacific,  or  in  those 
natural  Edens  laved  b}7  the  warm  seas  of  the 
Indian  archipelago,  human  life  is  made  inhuman 
by  the  horrors  of  a  false  religion.  Let  us  take 
a  picture  from  the  banks  of  the  Quango,  in  the 
interior  of  Africa.  In  speaking  of  the  people, 
Dr.  Livingstone  says,  "  I  have  often  thought,  in 
travelling  through  their  land,  that  it  presents  pic- 
tures of  beauty  which  angels  might  enjoy.  How 
often  have  I  beheld,  in  still  mornings,  scenes  the 
very  essence  of  beauty,  and  all  bathed  in  a  quiet 
air  of  delicious  warmth  !  Yet  the  occasional  soft 
motion  imparted  a  pleasing  sensation  of  coolness 
as  of  a  fan.  Green  grassy  meadows,  the  cattle 
feeding,  the  goats  browsing,  the  kids  skipping, 
the  groups  of  herdboys  with  miniature  bows, 
arrows,  and  spears;  the  women  wending  their 
way  to  the  river  with  watering-pots  poised 
jauntily  on  their  heads;  men  sewing  under  tho 
shady  banians;  and  old  gray-headed  fathers 
sitting  on  the  ground,  with  staff  in  hand,  listen- 
ing to  the  morning  gossip,  while  others  carry 
trees  or  branches  to  repair  their  hedges;  and  all 
this,  flooded  with  the  bright  African  sunshine,  and 
the  birds  singing  among  the  branches  before  tho 
heat  of  the  day  has  become  intense,  form  pictures 
whi  h  can  never  be  forgotten."*  Nevertheless,  he 
tells   us   that   they  cannot  "  enjoy  their  luxurious 


*  Travels,  p.  441. 


THE    NECESSITY    OF   THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD,        59 

climate,"  so  completely  and  habitually  do  they 
fancy  themselves  to  be  in  the  remorseless  power 
of  the  disembodied  souls.  Around  our  daily  path, 
on  the  other  hand,  are  strewn  the  memorials  and 
blessings  of  Jesus.  There  is  the  morning  ]\lass 
and  the  evening  Benediction.  Three  times  a  day 
the  Angelus  brings  afresh  its  sweet  tidings  of  the 
Incarnation.  Our  early  meditation  has  left  a 
picture  of  Jesus  on  our  souls  to  last  the  livelong 
day.  Our  heads  have  to  bo  told,  and  they  too  tell 
of  Jesus.  When  we  sink  to  rest  at  night,  his  own 
commendation  of  his  Soul  upon  the  Cross  prompts 
the  words  which  come  most  natural  to  our  lips. 
Think  of  those  poor  heathen,  wandering  savior- 
less  over  their  beautiful  lands  : — what  if  we  were 
like  to  them  ?  And  what  perchance  would  they 
have  been  if  they  had  had  but  half  our  grace? 

There  are  many  who  call  themselves  after  the 
name  of  Christ,  who  are  yet  outside  the  Church 
of  Christ.  Theirs  is  in  every  way  a  woeful  lot. 
To  be  so  near  Jesus,  and  yet  not  to  be  of  his 
blessed  fold, — to  be  within  reach  of  his  unsearch- 
able riches,  and  yet  to  miss  of  them,  to  be  so 
blessed  by  his  neighborhood,  and  yet  not  to  be 
savingly  united  to  him, — this  is  indeed  a  deso- 
lation. Their  creed  is  words  :  it  is  not  life.  They 
know  not  the  redeeming  grace  of  Jesus  rightly. 
Tney  understand  not  the  mysterious  dispositions 
of  his  Sacred  Heart.  They  disesteem  his  hidden 
Sacraments.  They  know  God  only  wrongly  and 
partially.  Their  knowledge  is  neither  light  nor 
love.  Every  thing  about  Jesus,  the  merest  ac- 
cessory of  his  Church,  the  faintest  vestige  of  his 
benediction,  the  very  shadow  of  his  likeness,  is 


GO        THE    NECESSITY   OF   THE    TRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

of  such  surpassing  importance,  that  for  the  least 
of  these  things  the  whole  world  would  be  but  :t 
paltry  price  to  pay.  The  gift  of  being  in  the  true 
Church  is  the  greatest  of  all  God's  gifts  which 
can  Be  given  out  of  heaven.  We  cannot  exagge- 
rate its  value.  It  is  the  pearl  beyond  price. 
Hence  also  the  "woeful ness  of  being  out  of  the 
Church  is  not  to  be  told  in  words.  I  doubt  if  it  is 
even  to  be  compassed  in  thought.  What,  then, 
if  we  had  so  far  lost  Jesus,  as  to  be  out  of  his 
Church?  Unbearable  thought!  yet  not  without 
some  sweetness,  as  it  makes  us  feel  more  keenly 
how  indispensable  he  is  to  us,  and  what  a  merciful 
good-fortune  he  has  given  us  to  enjoy. 

hut  even  inside  the  Church  there  are  wander- 
ing Cains,  impenitent  sinners  who  have  gone  out 
from  the  presence  of  God  and  wilfully  abide 
there.  They  have  lived  years  in  sin,  and  the 
chains  of  sinful  habits  are  heavy  upon  them. 
They  have  resisted  grace  a  thousand  times,  and  it 
looks  as  if  the  divine  inspirations  were  weary 
of  whispering  to  hearts  so  deaf.  Xo  thing  seems 
to  rouse  them.  They  never  advert  to  God  at  all. 
Their  conversion  must  be  a  perfect  miracle.  They 
are  obdurate.  They  are  living  portions  of  hell 
moving  up  and  down  the  earth.  It  is  only  by 
God's  mere}",  and  through  the  merits  of  Jesus, 
that  we  are  any  better  than  these  obdurate  sin- 
ners. Yet  we  rightly  thank  God,  even  while  we 
tremble  at  the  possibility,  that  he  has  prevented 
our  falling  into  such  a  slate.  What  then  if  we 
were  like  to  these?  What  if  we  were  numbered 
among  the  hardened  and  impenitent?  What  if 
wc  were  now  even  what  we  ourselves  may  have 


THE    NECESSITY    OF   THE   TRECIOUS   BLOOD.        01 

been  in  past  years,  before  tbe  strong  arm  of  tbo 
Sacraments  was  bold  out  to  us,  and  we  bad  the 
grace  to  lay  hold  of  it  and  let  it  draw  us  safely 
to  tbe  shore  ?  Yet  if  we  were  any  of  these,  hea*.. 
thens,  or  heretics,  or  obdurate  sinners,  we  should 
still  be  far  better  oft'  than  it*  there  were  no  Jesus 
in  the  world;  for  all  these  classes  of  men  are 
blessed  by  Jesus,  are  visited  by  his  grace  con- 
tinually, and  are  for  his  sake  surrounded  by  hope- 
ful possibilities  of  which  they  themselves  are  not 
aware.  How  unspeakably  dreadful  then  our  life 
would  be  without  Jesus,  when  to  be  a  heathen  or 
a  heretic  is  a  misery  so  terrible ! 

But  surely  we  have  said  enough  to  show  the 
necessity  of  Jesus.  Let  us  look  at  the  world 
without  his  Precious  Blood.  In  the  early  ages 
of  the  earth,  while  tbe  primitive  traditions  of 
Eden  were  still  fresh  and  strong,  and  when  GJod 
was  from  time  to  time  manifesting  himself  in 
supernatural  ways,  tbe  world  drifted  so  rapidly 
from  God  that  its  sins  began  to  assume  a  colossal 
magnitude.  There  was  a  complete  confusion  of 
all  moral  laws  and  duties.  There  was  such  an 
audacity  in  wickedness,  that  men  openly  braved 
God  and  threatened  to  besiege  heaven.  He  sent 
strange  judgments  upon  them,  but  they  would  not 
be  converted.  Scripture  represents  to  us  very 
forcibly  by  a  human  expression  the  terrific  nature 
of  their  iniquity.  It  sa}-s  that  the  Eternal  re- 
pented of  having  done  what  he  bad  eternals- 
decreed  to  do,  repented  of  having  made  man.  At 
length  the  divine  justice  opened  the  floodgates 
of  heaven,  and  destroyed  all  the  dwellers  upon 
earth,   except   eight   persons;  as  if  the  issue  of 

6 


G2        THE    NECESSITY    OF   THE   TRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

evil  could  not  otherwise  be  staunched.  This  is  a 
divine  manifestation  to  us  of  the  nature  and 
character  of  evil.  It  multiplies  itself.  It  tends 
to  be  gigantic,  and  to  get  from  under  control. 
It  is  always  growing  toward  an  open  rebellion 
against  the  majesty  of  God.  Everywhere  on  the 
earth  the  Precious  Blood  is  warring  down  this 
evil  in  detail.  Here  it  is  obliterating  it:  here  it  is 
cutting  otf  its  past  growths,  or  making  its  future 
growth  slower  or  of  less  dimensions.  There  it  is 
diluting  it  with  grace,  or  rendering  it  sterile,  or 
wounding  and  weakening  it,  or  making  it  cow- 
ardly and  cautious.  Upon  all  exhibitions  jof  evil 
the  action  of  the  Precious  Blood  is  incessant.  At 
no  time  and  in  no  place  is  it  altogether  inopera- 
tive. Let  us  see  what  the  world  would  be  like, 
if  the  Precious  Blood  withdrew  from  this  cease- 
less war  with  evil. 

It  is  plain  that  some  millions  of  sins  in  a  day 
are  hindered  by  the  Precious  Bloodj  and  this  is 
not  merely  a  hindering  of  so  many  individual 
sins,  but  it  is  an  immense  check  upon  the  mo- 
mentum of  sin.  It  is  also  a  weakening  of  habits 
of  sin,  and  a  diminution  of  the  consequences  of 
sin.  If  then,  the  action  of  tne  Precious  Blood 
were  withdrawn  from  the  world,  sins  would  not 
only  increase  incalculably  in  number,  but  the 
tyranny  of  sin  would  be  fearfully  augmented,  and 
it  would  spread  among  a  greater  number  of  people. 
It  would  wax  so  bold  that  no  cue  would  be  secure 
from  the  sins  of  others.  It  would  be  a  constant 
warfare,  or  an  intolerable  vigilance,  to  preserve 
property  and  rights.  Falsehood  would  become  so 
universal  us  almost  to  dissolve  society;  and  the 


THE    NECESSITY    OF   TRiS    i'BLOfCoS    BLOOD.        03 

homes  of  domestic  life  would  be  turned  into  tho 
wards  either  of  a  prison  or  a  madhouse.  We  cannot 
be  in  the  company  of  an  atrocious  criminal  without 
some  feeling  of  uneasiness  and  fear.  We  should 
not  like  to  be  left  alone  with  him,  even  if  his 
chains  were  not  unfastened.  But  without  the 
Precious  Blood,  such  men  would  abound  in  the 
world.  They  might  even  become  the  majority. 
We  know  of  ourselves,  from  glimpses  God  has 
once  or  twice  given  us  in  life,  what  incredible 
possibilities  of  wickedness  we  have  in  our  souls. 
Civilization  increases  these  possibilities.  Educa- 
tion multiplies  and  magnifies  our  powers  of  sin- 
ning. Refinement  adds  a  fresh  malignity.  Men 
would  thus  become  more  diabolically  and  unmixedly 
bad,  until  at  last  earth  would  be  a  hell  on  this 
side  of  the  crave.  There  would  also  doubtless  be 
new  kinds  of  sins  and  worse  kinds.  Education 
would  provide  the  novelty,  and  refinement  would 
carry  it  into  the  region  of  the  unnatural.  All 
highly-refined  and  luxurious  developments  of 
heathenism  have  fearfully  illustrated  this  truth. 
A  wicked  barbarian  is  like  a  beast.  His  savage 
passions  are  violent  but  intermitting,  and  his 
necessities  of  sin  do  not  appear  to  grow.  Their 
circle  is  limited.  But  a  highly-educated  sinner, 
without  the  restraints  of  religion,  is  like  a  demon. 
His  sins  are  less  confined  to  himself.  They  involve 
others  in  their  misery.  They  require  others  to  be 
offered  as  it  were  in  sacrifice  to  them.  Moreover, 
education,  considered  simply  as  an  intellectual 
cultivation,  propagates  sin,  and  nrakes  it  more 
universal. 

The    increase    of    sin,   without    the    prospects 


04        THE    NECESSITY   OF    THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

which  the  faith  lays  open  to  us,  must  lead  to  an 
increase  of  despair,  and  to  an  increase  of  it  upon 
a  gigantic  scale.  With  despair  must  come  rage 
madness,  violence,  tumult,  and  bloodshed.  Yet 
from  what  quarter  could  we  expect  relief  in  this 
tremendous  suffering?  We  should  be  imprisoned 
in  our  own  planet.  The  blue  sky  above  us  would 
be  but  a  dungeon-roof.  The  greensward  beneath 
our  feet  would  truly  bo  the  slab  of  our  future 
tomb.  Without  the  Precious  Blood  there  is  no 
intercourse  between  heaven  and  earth.  Praj-er 
would  be  useless.  Our  hapless  lot  would  be  irre- 
mediable. It  has  always  seemed  to  me  that  it 
will  be  one  of  the  terrible  things  in  hell,  that 
there  are  no  motives  for  patience  there.  We 
cannot  make  the  best  of  it.  Why  should  we 
endure  it?  Endurance  is  an  effort  for  a  time;  but 
this  woe  is  eternal.  Perhaps  vicissitudes  of  agony 
might  be  a  kind  of  field  for  patience.  But  there 
arc  no  such  vicissitudes.  Why  should  we  endure, 
then?  Simply  because  we  must;  and  yet  in  eter- 
nal things  this  is  not  a  sort  of  necessity  which 
supplies  a  reasonable  ground  for  patience.  So  in 
this  imaginary  world  of  rampant  sin  there  would 
be  no  motives  for  patience.  For  death  would  be 
our  only  seeming  relief;  and  that  is  only  seeming, 
for  death  is  any  thing  but  an  eternal  sleep.  Our 
impatience  would  become  frenzy;  and,  if  our 
constitutions  were  strong  enough  to  prevent  the 
frenzy  from  issuing  in  downright  madness,  it 
would  grow  into  hatred  of  God,  which  is  perhaps 
already  less  uncommon  than  we  suppose. 

An  earth,  from  off  which  all  sense  of  justice  had 
perished,  would  indeed    be   the   most  disconsolate 


THE    NECESSITY   OF   THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD.        G5 

of  homes.  The  antediluvian  earth  exhibits  only 
a  tendency  that  way;  and  the  same  is  true  of  tho 
worst  forms  of  heathenism.  The  Precious  Blood 
was  always  there.  Unnamed,  unknown,  and  un- 
suspected, the  Blood  of  Jesus  has  alleviated  every 
manifestation  of  evil  which  there  has  ever  becn^ 
just  as  it  is  alleviating  at  this  hour  the  punish- 
ments of  hell.  What  would  be  our  own  individual 
case  on  srch  a  blighted  earth  as  this?  All  our 
struggles  to  be  better  would  be  simpl}7  hopeless. 
There  would  be  no  reason  why  we  should  not 
give  ourselves  up  to  that  kind  of  enjoyment 
which  our  corrupiion  does  substantially  find  in 
sin.  The  gratification  of  our  appetites  is  some- 
thing; and  that  lies  on  one  side,  while  on  tho 
other  side  there  is  absolutely  nothing.  But  we 
should  have  the  worm  of  conscience  already,  even 
though  the  flames  of  hell  might  yet  be  some  years 
distant.  To  feel  that  we  are  fools,  and  yet  lack 
the  strength  to  be  wiser, — is  not  this  precisely  the 
maddening  thing  in  madness?  Yet  it  would  bo 
our  normal  state  under  the  reproaches  of  con- 
science, in  a  world  where  there  Avas  no  Precious 
Blood.  Whatever  relics  of  moral  good  we  might 
retain  about  us  would  add  most  sensibly  to  our 
wretchedness.  Good  people,  if  there  were  any, 
would  be,  as  St.  Paul  speaks,  of  all  men  the  most 
miserable  :  for  they  would  be  drawn  away  from 
the  enjoyment  of  this  world,  or  have  their  enjoy- 
ment of  it  abated  by  a  sense  of  guilt  and  shame; 
and  there  would  be  no  other  world  to  aim  at  or 
to  work  for.  To  lessen  the  intensity  of  our  hell 
without  abridging  its  eternity  would  hardly  to 
a  cogent  motive,  when  the  temptat;ons  of  sin 
E  6* 


6G        THE    NECESSITY    OF   TIIE   PRECIOUS   1H,00D. 

and  the  allurements  of  sense  arc  so  vivid  and  so 
strong. 

What  sort  of  love  could  there  be,  when  we 
could  have  no  respect  ?  Even  if  flesh  and  blood 
made  us  love  each  other,  what  a  separation  death 
would  be  !  We  should  commit  our  dead  to  the 
ground  without  a  hope.  Husband  and  wife  would 
part  with  the  fearfullest  certainties  of  a  reunion 
more  terrible  than  their  separation.  Mothers 
would  long  to  look  upon  their  little  ones  in  the 
arms  of  death,  because  their  lot  would  be  less 
woeful  than  if  the}-  lived  to  offend  God  with  their 
developed  reason  and  intelligent  will.  The  sweet- 
est feelings  of  our  nature  would  become  unnatural, 
and  the  most  honorable  ties  be  dishonored.  Our 
best  instincts  would  lead  us  into  our  worst  dan- 
gers. Our  hearts  would  have  to  learn  to  beat 
another  way,  in  order  to  avoid  the  dismal  conse- 
quences which  our  affections  would  bring  upon 
ourselves  and  others.  But  it  is  needless  to  go 
further  into  these  harrowing  details.  The  world 
of  the  heart,  without  the  Precious  Blood,  and 
with  an  intellectual  knowledge  of  God  and  his 
punishments  of  sin,  is  too  fearful  a  picture  to  be 
drawn  with  minute  fidelity. 

But  how  would  it  fare  with  the  poor  in  such  a 
world?  They  are  God's  chosen  portion  upon  earth. 
He  chose  poverty  himself,  when  he  came  to  us. 
He  has  left  the  poor  in  his  place,  and  they  are 
never  to  fail  from  the  earth,  but  to  be  his  repre- 
sentatives there  until  the  doom.  But,  if  it  were 
not  for  the  Precious  Blood,  would  any  one  love 
them?  Would  any  one  have  a  devotion  to  them, 
and   dedicate    his    life    to  merciful    ingenuities   to 


THE    NECESSITY   OF   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD.        G7 

alleviate  their  lot?  If  the  stream  of  almsgiving 
is  so  insufficient  now,  what  would  it  bo  then  ? 
There  would  be  no  softening  of  the  heart  by 
grace;  there  would  be  no  admission  of  the  obli- 
gation to  give  away  in  alms  a  definite  portion 
of  our  incomes;  there  would  be  no  desire  to  ex- 
piate sin  by  munificence  to  the  needy  for  the  love 
of  God.  The  gospel  makes  men's  hearts  large; 
and  yet  even  under  the  gospel  the  fountain  of 
almsgiving  flows  scantily  and  uncertainly.  There 
would  be  no  religious  orders  devoting  themselves 
with  skilful  concentration  to  different  acts  of  spi- 
ritual and  corporal  mercy.  Vocation  is  a  blossom 
to  be  found  only  in  the  gardens  of  the  Precious 
Blood.  But  all  this  is  only  negative,  only  an 
absence  of  God.  Matters  would  go  much  further 
in  such  a  world  as  we  are  imagining. 

Even  in  countries  professing  to  be  Christian, 
and  at  least  in  possession  of  the  knowledge  of  the 
gospel,  the  poor  grow  to  be  an  intolerable  burden 
to  the  rich.  They  have  to  be  supported  by  com- 
pulsory taxes;  and  they  are  in  other  ways  a  con- 
tinual subject  of  irritated  and  impatient  legislation. 
Nevertheless,  it  is  due  to  the  Precious  Blood  that 
the  principle  of  supporting  them  is  acknowledged. 
Prom  what  we  read  in  heathen  history, — even  the 
history  of  nations  renowned  for  political  wisdom, 
for  philosophical  speculation,  and  for  literary  and 
artistic  refinement, — it  would  not  be  extravagant 
for  us  to  conclude  that,  if  the  circumstances  of  a 
country  were  such  as  to  make  the  numbers  of  tho 
poor  dangerous  to  the  rich,  the  rich  would  noi; 
scruple  to  destroy  them,  while  it  was  }Tet  in  their 
power  to  do  so.     Just  as  men  have  had  in  Frai\ce 


G8        THE    NECESSITY   OF    THE    PRECIOUS    BIOOD. 

and  England  to  war  down  bears  and  wolves,  so 
would  the  rich  war  down  the  poor,  whose  cla- 
morous misery  and  excited  despair  should  threaten 

them  in  the  enjoyment  of  their  power  and  their 
possessions.  The  numbers  of  the  poor  would  be 
thinned  by  murder,  until  it  should  be  safe  for 
their  masters  to  reduce  them  into  slavery.  The 
survivors  would  lead  the  lives  of  convicts  or  of 
beasts.  History,  I  repeat,  shows  us  that  this  is 
by  no  means  an  extravagant  supposition. 

Such  would  be  the  condition  of  the  world  with- 
out the  Precious  Blood.  As  generations  succeeded 
each  other,  original  sin  would  go  on  developing 
those  inexhaustible  malignant  powers  which  come 
from  the  almost  infinite  character  of  evil.  Sin 
would  work  earth  into  hell.  Men  would  become 
devils,  devils  to  others  and  to  themselves.  Every 
thing  which  makes  life  tolerable,  which  counteracts 
any  evil,  which  softens  any  harshness,  which 
sweetens  any  bitterness,  which  causes  the  machi- 
nery of  society  to  work  smoothly,  or  which  con- 
soles any  sadness, — is  simpty  due  to  the  Precious 
Blood  of  Jesus,  in  heathen  as  well  as  Christian 
lands.  It  changes  the  whole  position  of  an  offend- 
ing creation  to  its  Creator.  It  changes,  if  we  may 
dare  in  such  a  matter  to  speak  of  change,  the 
aspect  of  God's  immutable  perfections  toward  his 
human  children.  It  does  not  work  merely  in  a 
spiritual  sphere.  It  is  not  only  prolific  in  temporal 
blessings,  but  it  is  the  veritable  cause  of  all  tem- 
poral blessings  whatsoever.  Y\Te  are  all  of  us  every 
moment  sensibly  enjoying  the  benignant  influence 
of  the  Precious  Blood.  Yet  who  thinks  of  all 
this?     Why  is  the  goodness  of  God  so  h'flden,  so 


THE    NECESSITY    OF   THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD-        G9 

imperceptible,  so  unsuspected?  Perhaps  because 
it  is  so  universal  and  so  excessive,  that  we  should 
hardly  be  free  agents  if  it  pressed  sensibly  upon 
us  always.  God's  goodness  is  at  once  the  most 
public  of  all  his  attributes,  and  at  the  same  time 
the  most  secret.  Has  lite  a  sweeter  task  than  to 
seek  it,  g,nd  to  find  it  out? 

Men  would  be  far  more  happy,  if  they  separated 
religion  less  violently  from  other  things.  It  is 
both  unwise  and  unloving  to  put  religion  into  a 
place  by  itself,  and  mark  it  off  with  an  untrue  dis- 
tinctness from  what  we  call  worldly  and  unspiritual 
things.  Of  course  there  is  a  distinction,  and  a 
most  important  one,  between  them;  j-et  it  is  easy 
to  make  this  distinction  too  rigid  and  to  carry  it 
too  far.  Thus  we  often  attribute  to  nature  what 
is  only  due  to  grace;  and  we  put  out  of  sight  the 
manner  and  degree  in  which  the  blessed  mystery 
of  the  Incarnation  affects  all  created  things.  But 
this  mistake  is  forever  robbing  us  of  hundreds  of 
motives  for  loving  Jesus.  We  know  how  un- 
speakably much  we  owe  to  him;  but  Ave  do  not 
isee  that  it  is  not  much  we  owe  him,  but  all,  simply 
and  absolutely  all.  We  pass  through  times  and 
places  in  life,  hardly  recognising  how  the  sweet- 
ness of  Jesus  is  sweetening  the  air  around  us  and 
penetrating  natural  things  with  supernatural 
blessings. 

Hence  it  comes  to  pass  that  men  make  too  much 
of  natural  goodness.  They  think  too  highly  of 
human  progress.  They  exaggerate  the  moralizing 
powers  of  civilization  and  refinement,  which,  apart 
from  grace,  are  simply  tyrannies  of  tne  few  over 
the  many,  or  of  the  public  over  the  individual  soul. 


70        TEE    NECESSITY   OF   TIIE   TRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

Meanwhile  the\T  underrate  the  corrupting  capabili- 
ties of  sin,  and  attribute  to  unassisted  nature  many 
excellences  which  it  only  catches,  as  it  were  by 
infection,  from  the  proximity  of  grace,  or  by  con- 
tagion, from  the  touch  of  the  Church.  Even  in 
religious  or  ecclesiastical  matters  they  incline  to 
measure  progress,  or  test  vigor,  by  other  standards 
rather  than  that  of  holiness.  These  men  will  con- 
sider the  foregoing  picture  of  the  world  without 
the  Precious  Blood  as  overdrawn  and  too  darkly 
shaded.  They  do  not  believe  in  the  intense  ma- 
lignity of  man  when  drifted  from  God,  and  still 
less  are  they  inclined  to  grant  that  cultivation  and 
refinement  only  intensify  still  further  this  malig- 
nity. They  admit  the  superior  excellence  of 
Christian  charity;  but  they  also  think  highly  of 
natural  philanthropy.  But  has  this  philanthropy 
ever  been  found  where  the  indirect  influences  of 
the  true  religion,  whether  Jewish  or  Christian,  had 
not  penetrated?  We  may  admire  the  Greeks  for 
their  exquisite  refinement,  and  the  Romans  for  the 
wisdom  of  their  political  moderation.  Yet  look  at 
the  position  of  children,  of  servants,  of  slaves,  and 
of  the  poor,  under  both  those  systems,  and  see  if, 
while  extreme  refinement  only  pushed  sin  to  an 
extremit}'  of  foulness,  the  same  exquisite  culture 
did  not  also  lead  to  a  social  cruelty  and  an  indi- 
vidual selfishness  which  made  life  unbearable  to 
the  masses.  Philanthropy  is  but  a  theft  from  the 
gospel,  or  rather  a  shadow,  not  a  substance,  and  as 
unhelpful  as  shadows  are  wont  to  be.  Xevertheless, 
let  us  take  this  philanthropy  at  its  word,  and  see 
what  the  world  would  be  like,  with  philanthropy 
instead  of  the  Precious  Blood. 


THE    NECESSITY   OF   TUE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD.        71 

We  will  take  the  -world  as  it  is,  with  its  present 
evils.  What  amount  of  alleviation  can  philan- 
thropy bring,  supposing  there  could  be  such  a 
thing  without  the  example  and  atmosphere  of  the 
gospel?  In  the  first  place,  what  could  it  do  for 
poverty?  It  would  be  dismayed  by  the  number 
of  the  poor  and  appalled  by  the  variety  and 
exigency  of  their  needs.  All  manner  of  intract- 
able questions  would  rise  up,  for  the  solving  of 
which  its  philosophy  could  furnish  it  with  no 
simple  principles.  Men  would  have  their  own 
work  to  do,  and  their  own  business  to  attend  to. 
It  is  not  conceivable  that  mere  philanthropy 
should  make  the  administration  of  alms  and  the 
ministering  to  the  poor  a  separate  profession;  and 
self-devotion  upon  any  large  scale  is  not  to  be 
thought  of  except  as  a  corollary  of  the  doctrine 
of  the  Cross.  Thus,  while  the  alms  to  be  distri- 
buted would  necessarily  be  limited,  and  the  claims 
almost  illimitable,  there  would  be  no  means  of 
proportioning  relief.  Unseen  poverty  is  for  the 
most  part  a  worthier  thing  than  the  poverty  which 
is  seen:  but  who  would  with  patient  kindness  and 
instinctive  delicacy  track  shamefaced  poverty  to 
its  obscure  retirements?  The  loudest  beggars 
would  get  most,  the  modest  least.  The  highest 
virtue  aimed  at  in  the  distribution  of  alms,  and  it 
is  truly  a  high  one,  would  be  justice.  Thus  it 
would  come  to  pass  that  those  who  by  sin  or  folly 
had  brought  poverty  upon  themselves  would 
obtain  no  relief  at  all :  and  so  charity  would  cease 
to  have  any  power  to  raise  men  above  their  past 
lives,  or  elevate  them  in  the  scale  of  moral  worth. 
Eccentricity    is    a    common    accompaniment  of 


!2        THE    NECESSITY   OF   THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

misery;  and  that  which  is  eccentric  would  hardly 
recommend  itself  to  philanthropy,  even  if  it  did 
not  seem  to  be  a  proof  of  insincerity.  Christina 
charity  can  only  sustain  its  equanimity  by  fixing 
its  eyes  upon  a  higher  object  than  the  misery 
which  it  relieves.  What  is  not  done  for  God  in 
this  matter  is  done  but  uncertainly  as  well  as 
6cantily,  and  soon  wearies  of  the  unlovely  and 
exacting  poor.  It  is  only  the  similitude  of  Jesus 
which  beautifies  poverty.  Works  of  mercy  are 
not  attractive  to  hearts  untouched  by  love.  More- 
over, no  slight  amount  of  the  beneficence  of  Chris- 
tian charity  resides  in  its  irregularity.  Coming 
from  the  impulses  of  love,  it  has  an  ebb  and  flow 
which  make  it  like  the  seeming  unevenness  and 
inequalities  of  outward  providence;  and  this,  which 
reason  would  account  as  a  defect,  turns  out  in 
practice  a  more  real  blessing  than  the  formal 
equality  and  periodical  punctuality  of  a  merely 
conscientious  and  justice-loving  benevolence.  Phi- 
lanthropy must  have  a  sphere,  a  round,  a  beat.  It 
must  of  necessity  have  in  it  somewhat  of  the 
political  economist,  and  somewhat  of  the  police- 
man. It  must  never  allow  individual  sympathies 
to  draw  off  its  attention  to  the  public  welfare.  Its 
genius  must  be  legislative,  rather  than  impulsive. 
Sudden  misfortunes,  a  bad  harvest,  a  commercial 
crisis,  a  sickly  winter, — these  things  would  sadly 
interfere  with  the  calculations  of  philanthropy.  If 
the  amount  of  self-sacrifice  is  so  small,  when  wo 
have  the  example  of  our  Lord,  and  the  doctrine 
that  alms  redeem  souls,  and  the  actual  obligation 
under  pain  of  sin  to  set  aside  a  portion  of  our  in- 


THE    NECESSITY   OF   THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD.        73 

comes  for  the  poor,  what  would  it  be  if  all  these 
motives  were  withdrawn? 

Let  us  consider  bodily  pain,  and  the  agency 
of  philanthropy  in  alleviating  it.  An  immense 
amount  of  the  world's  misery  consists  in  bodily 
pain.  There  are  few  things  more  hard  to  bear. 
It  is  one  of  our  unrealities  that  we  write  and  speak 
lightly  of  it.  We  think  it  grand  to  do  so.  Wo 
think  to  show  our  manliness.  But  the  truth  is, 
there  are  few  men  who  could  not  bear  a  breaking 
heart  better  than  an  aching  limb.  There  are  many 
points  of  view  from  which  bodily  pain  is  less  easy 
to  bear  than  mental  anguish.  It  is  less  intelligible. 
It  appeals  less  to  our  reason.  If  the  consolations 
of  moral  wisdom  are  of  no  great  cogency  to  hearts 
in  sorrow,  the}'  arc  of  none  at  all  to  those  whose 
nerves  are  racked  with  pain.  Mental  suffering  has 
its  peculiar  extremities.  To  the  few  probably  they 
exceed  the  extremities  of  bodity  agony;  but  in 
the  majority  of  cases  they  are  less  intolerable; 
and  in  all  cases  most  intolerable  when  they  have 
succeeded  in  deranging  the  bodily  health  and  so 
adding  that  sufferine;  to  their  own.  Moreover,  the 
excesses  of  mental  anguish,  while  they  visit  chiefly 
the  rarer  and  more  sensitive  minds,  are  always  of 
brief  duration:  whereas  it  is  fearful  to  think  of 
the  heights  to  which  bodily  torture  can  rise,  and 
of  the  time  extreme  torment  can  last  without  pro- 
ducing either  insensibility  or  death.  But  what 
can  philanthropy  do  for  bodily  pain?  Every  one 
whose  lot  it  is  to  lead  a  life  of  pain  knows  too 
well  how  little  medical  science  avails  to  alleviate 
'.his  particular  kind  of  human  suffering.  It  may 
do  much  in  the  way  of  prevention.     Who  knows? 

7 


74        TflE   NECESSITY    OP   THE   TRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

For  the  pain  we  might  have  had,  but  have  not 
had,  is  an  unknown  region.  Let  us  give  medical 
Science  the  benefit  of  our  ignorance.  But,  as  to 
the  pains  which  we  have  actually  suffered,  how 
often  have  they  refused  to  abate  one  tittle  of  their 
severity  at  the  bidding  of  science!  When  they 
have  done  so,  how  slowly  have  they  yielded  to  the 
power  of  remedies,  and  how  often  have  the  remedies 
themselves  brought  new  pains  along  with  them! 
The  pains  which  the  human  frame  has  to  bear 
from  various  ailments  are  terrible  in  their  number, 
their  variety,  and  the  horror  which  attaches  to 
many  of  them :  over  this  empire,  which  original 
sin  has  created,  how  feeble  and  how  limited  is  the 
jurisdiction  of  medical  science!  Yet  what  could 
philanthropy  do  for  bodily  pain,  except  surround 
it  with  medical  appliances  and  with  physical  com- 
forts? Let  us  not  underrate  the  consolation  of  the 
larere-minded  wisdom,  the  benevolent  common 
sense,  and  the  peculiar  priestly  kindness  of  an 
intelligent  physician.  It  is  very  great.  Neither 
let  us  pretend  to  make  light  of  the  alleviations  of 
an  airy  room,  of  a  soft  bed,  of  well-prepared  food, 
of  a  low  voice  and  a  noiseless  step,  and  of  those 
attentions  which  are  beforehand  with  our  irrita- 
bility by  divining  our  wants  at  the  right  moment. 
Nevertheless,  when  the  daily  pressure  of  bodily 
pain  goes  on  for  weeks  and  months,  when  all  life 
which  is  not  illness  is  but  a  vacillating  convales- 
cence, what  adequate  or  abiding  consolation  can 
we  find,  except  in  supernatural  things,  in  the  mo- 
tives of  the  faith,  in  union  with  Jesus,  in  that 
secret  experimental  knowledge  of  God  which 
makes  us  at  times  find  chastisement  so  sweet? 


TIIE    NECESSITY   OF   THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD.        75 

It  is  the  characteristic  of  mental  suffering  to  be 
for  the  most  part  beyond  the  reach  of  philan- 
thropy. Every  heart  knows  its  own  bitterness. 
That  part  of  a  mental  sorrow,  which  can  lie  ex- 
pressed, is  generally  the  part  which  rankles  hast. 
The  suffering  of  it  depends  mainly  on  feelings 
which  belong  to  individual  character,  feelings 
which  can  hardly  be  stated,  and  which,  if  stated, 
could  not  be  appreciated,  even  if  they  were  not 
altogether  misunderstood.  Who  has  not  often 
wondered  at  the  almost  invariable  irritation  pro- 
duced in  unhappy  persons  by  set  and  formal  sooth- 
ing? There  is  a  pity  in  the  tone  of  voice  which 
wounds  rather  than  heals.  The  very  composure 
of  features  aggravates  us  by  making  us  feel  more 
vividly  the  reality  of  our  grief.  We  have  long  since 
exhausted  for  ourselves  all  the  available  topics  of 
consolation.  Not  in  gradual  procession,  but  all  at 
once  like  a  lightning's  flash,  all  the  motives  and 
wisdoms,  which  occupy  my  unsuffering  friend  an 
hour  to  enumerate,  were  laid  hold  of,  fathomed, 
and  dismissed  by  1113'  heart,  which  suffering  had 
awakened  to  a  speed  and  power  of  sensitiveness 
quite  incredible.  Job  is  not  the  only  persjn  Avho 
m  has  been  more  provoked  by  his  comforters  than 
by  his  miseries.  Even  the  daily  wear  and  tear  of 
our  hearts  in  common  life  cannot  be  reached  by 
outward  consolation,  unless  that  consolation  conies 
from  above  and  is  divine.  Philanthropy,  with  the 
best  intentions,  can  never  get  inside  the  heart. 
There  are  sufferings  there  too  deep  for  any  thing 
but  religion  either  to  reach  or  to  appreciate;  and 
such  sufferings  are  neither  exceptional  nor  uncom- 
mon.   There  are  few  men  who  have  not  more  than 


76        THE    NECESSITY   OF   THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

one  of  them.  If  we  take  away  the  great  sorrow 
upon  Calvary,  how  dark  and  how  unbearable  a 
mystery  does  all  sorrow  become!  Kindness  is 
sweet,  even  to  the  sorrowing,  because  of  its  inten- 
tions :  it  is  not  valuable  because  of  its  efficacy, 
except  when  it  is  the  graceful  minister  of  the  Pre- 
cious Blood. 

I  reckon  failure  to  be  the  most  universal  un- 
happiness  on  earth.  Almost  everybody  and  every 
thing  are  failures, — failures  in  their  own  estima- 
tion, even  if  they  are  not  so  in  the  estimation  of 
others.  Those  optimists  who  always  think  them- 
selves successful  are  few  in  number,  and  they  for 
the  most  part  fail  in  this  at  least,  namely,  that 
the}'  cannot  persuade  the  rest  of  the  world  of 
their  success.  Philanthropy  can  plainly  do  nothing 
here,  even  if  it  were  inclined  to  try.  But  philan- 
thropy is  a  branch  of  moral  philosophy,  and  would 
turn  away  in  disdain  from  an  unhappiness  which 
it  could  prove  to  be  unreasonable,  even  while  it 
acknowledged  it  to  be  universal.  It  is  simply 
true  that  few  men  are  successful ;  and  of  those 
few  it  is  rare  to  find  any  who  are  satisfied  with 
their  own  success.  The  multitude  of  men  live 
with  a  vexatious  sense  that  the  promise  of  their 
lives  remains  unfulfilled.  Either  outward  circum- 
stances have  been  against  them,  or  they  have  been 
misappreciated,  or  the}'-  have  got  out  of  their 
grooves  unknowingly,  or  they  have  been  the  vic- 
tims of  injustice.  What  must  all  life  be  but  a 
feverish  disappointment,  if  there  be  no  eternity 
in  view?  The  religious  man  is  the  only  successful 
man.  Nothing  fails  with  him.  Every  shall  reaches 
the  mark,  if  the  mark  be  God.     lie  has  wasted  no 


THE    NECESSITY    OF    THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.         11 

energies.  Every  hope  has  been  fulfilled  beyond 
bis  expectations.  Every  effort  has  been  even 
disproportionately  rewarded.  Every  means  has 
turned  out  marvellously  to  be  an  end,  because  it 
bad  God  in  it,  who  is  our  single  end.  In  piety, 
every  battle  is  a  victory,  simply  because  it  is  a 
battle.  The  completest  defeats  have  somewhat 
of  triumph  in  them;  for  it  is  a  positive  triumph 
to  have  stood  up  and  fought  for  God  at  all.  In 
short,  no  life  is  a  failure  which  is  lived  for  God; 
and  all  lives  are  failures  which  are  lived  for  any 
other  end.  If  it  is  part  of  any  man's  disposition 
to  be  peculiarly  and  morbidly  sensitive  to  failure, 
he  must  regard  it  as  an  additional  motive  to  be 
religious.  Piety  is  the  only  invariable,  satisfac- 
tory, genuine  success. 

If  philanthropy  turns  out  to  be  so  unhelpful 
a  thing  in  the  difficulties  of  life,  will  it  be  more 
helpful  at  the  bed  of  death?  Death  is  the  failure 
of  nature.  There  is  no  help  then,  except  in  the 
supernatural.  Philanthropy  cannot  help  us  to  die 
ourselves ;  nor  can  it  take  away  our  sorrow  for 
the  deaths  of  others.  Without  religion  death  is  a 
problem  and  a  terror.  It  is  only  by  the  light  of 
faith  that  we  see  it  to  be  a  punishment  commuted 
by  divine  love  into  a  crown  and  a  rewrard.  The 
sense  of  guilt,  the  uneasiness  in  darkness,  the 
shrinking  from  the  unknown,  the  shapeless  sha- 
dows of  an  unexplored  world,  the  new  panic  of 
the  soul,  the  sensible  momentary  falling  off  into 
an  alrvss,  the  inevitable  helplessness,  the  frighten- 
ing1 transition  from  a  state  of  change  to  one  of 
endless  fixedness, — how  is  philanthropy  to  meet 
such    difficulties   as    these?     Truly,  in   the   atmo. 


78         THE    NECESSITY   OF   THE   TRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

sphere  of  death  all  lights  go  out  except  the  lamp 
of  faith. 

But  we  have  spoken  of  the  actual  miseries  of 
life,  and  the  condition  we  should  be  in,  if  we  took 
the  consolations  of  philanthropy  instead  of  those 
of  the  Precious  Blood.  This  however  is  in  reality 
not  a  fair  view  of  the  case.  Great  as  the  actual 
miseries  of  life  are,  the  Precious  Blood  is  conti- 
nually making  them  very  much  less  than  they 
otherwise  would  be.  It  diminishes  poverty  by 
multiplying  alms.  It  lessens  the  evil  of  pain,  and 
to  some  extent  even  its  amount,  by  the  grace  of 
patience  and  the  appliances  of  the  supernatural 
life;  not  to  speak  of  miraculous  operations,  occur- 
ring perhaps  hourly  upon  the  earth,  through  the 
touch  of  relics,  crosses,  and  other  sacred  objects 
The  amount  of  temporal  evil  which  would  other- 
wise have  come  upon  the  earth,  but  is  daily 
absorbed  by  the  Sacrament  of  penance  and  by  the 
virtue  of  penance,  must  be  enormous.  In  the  case 
of  mental  suffering,  besides  the  many  indirect 
alleviations  brought  to  it  by  the  Precious  Blood, 
we  must  remember  the  vast  world  of  horrors 
arising  from  unabsolved  consciences,  horrors  which 
the  Sacraments  are  annihilating  daily.  Failure  is 
indeed  the  rule  of  human  enterprise,  and  success 
is  the  exception.  Yet  there  are  numberless  coun- 
terbalancing blessings  won  by  the  interest  of  the 
Mother  of  God,  by  the  intercession  of  the  saints, 
by  the  intervention  of  angels,  by  the  Sacrifice 
of  the  Mass,  and  by  the  sacramental  residence 
of  Jesus  upon  earth,  which  would  not  exist  but  for 
the  Precious  Blood.  Final!}7,  as  to  death,  what- 
ever  light  is   cast  upon   it  is  from   the  Blood  of 


THE    NECESSITY    OF    TIIE    TRECIOUS    B100D.        79 

Jesus.  Were  it  not  for  Jesus,  the  dark  hour  would 
be  darkened  with  an  Egyptian  darkness.  It  has 
something  of  the  glory  of  a  sunset  round  it  now, 
and  the  glory  is  the  refulgence  of  the  Saviour's 
Blood. 

But,  in  this  world,  manner  is  often  a  more  sub- 
stantial thing  than  matter.  "We  often  care  less  for 
the  thing  done  than  for  the  manner  in  which  it  is 
done,  less  for  the  gift  than  for  the  way  in  which 
the  gift  is  given.  Now  let  us  picture  to  ourselves 
an  imaginary  philanthropic  city.  Its  palaces 
shall  be  hospitals,  hospitals  for  every  form  of 
disease  which  is  known  to  medical  science.  Its 
business  shall  not  be  politics,  but  the  administra- 
tion of  benevolent  societies.  Its  rich  population 
shall  divide  and  subdivide  itself  into  endless  com- 
mittees, each  of  which  shall  make  some  human 
misery  its  specialty.  Its  intellect  shall  be  occu- 
pied in  devising  schemes  of  philanthropy,  in  in- 
venting new  methods  and  fresh  organizations,  and 
in  bringing  to  perfection  the  police,  the  order,  the 
comfort,  the  accommodation,  the  pliability,  of  ex- 
isting beneficent  institutions.  The  strangest  suc- 
cesses shall  be  attained  with  the  blind,  the  deaf 
and  dumb,  and  the  insane.  Moreover,  in  this  city, 
which  the  world  has  never  seen,  the  philanthropy 
shall  be  the  most  genial  and  good-humoured  of  all 
the  philanthropies  which  the  world  has  had  the 
good  fortune  to  see.  Yet  who  that  has  ever  seen 
the  most  estimable,  easy-going,  and  conscientious 
board  of  Poor-Law  guardians  can  doubt  but  that, 
on  the  whole,  considerable  dryness,  stiffness, 
woodenness,  theoretical  pugnacity,  benevolent  per- 
tinaciousness,  vexatious  generalizations,  and  irri- 


80        THE    NECESSITY    OF    THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

table  surprise  at  the  unmanageable  prejudiced 
poor,  would  characterize  this  philanthropic  city  ? 
Misery  cannot  be  relieved  on  rules  of  distributive 
justice.  Masses  will  not  organize  themselves 
under  theories.  Hearts  will  not  attain  happiness 
through  clear  convictions  that  they  ought  to  be 
happy.  Individual  misery  has  an  inveterate  habit 
of  dictating  its  own  consolations.  The  most  open- 
hearted  benefactors  would  be  met  by  suspicion. 
A  needy  man  can  outwit  most  committees.  Ma- 
chinery for  men  gets  soon  choked  up  by  multi- 
tudes, and  for  the  most  part  blows  up  and  maims 
its  excellent  inventors.  There  are  few  who 
can  handle  a  large  army;  }-et  that  is  easy  work 
compared  to  the  question  of  the  management  of 
the  poor.  Moreover,  when  the  best  men  have 
done  their  best,  there  always  remains  that  instinct 
in  the  poor,  which  makes  them  see  only  enemies 
in  the  rich  ;  and  that  instinct  is  too  strong  for  the 
collective  wisdom  of  all  the  philanthropists  in  tho 
world. 

I  am  far  from  saying  that  Christian  charity  is 
perfect,  or  that  the  duties  of  catholic  mercy, 
whether  monastic  or  secular,  leave  nothing  to  be 
desired.  Everywhere  the  scantiness  of  the  alms 
of  the  rich  is  the  standing  grievance  of  the  priest. 
Everywhere  the  breadth  and  activity  of  human 
misery  are  baffling  and  outrunning  the  speed  and 
generosity  of  charity.  Nevertheless,  I  verily  be- 
lieve that  one  convent  of  Sisters  of  Charity,  or 
one  house  of  St.  Camillas,  would  do  more  actual, 
more  successful  work,  in  a  huge  European  capital, 
than  would  be  done  in  the  whole  of  such  a  philan- 
thropic city  as  we  have  been  imagining.     Out  of 


THE    NECESSITY   OF   TIIE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD.        81 

the  love  of  Jesus  comes  the  love  of  souls;  and 
it  is  just  the  love  of  souls  which  effects  that  most 
marvellous  of  all  Christian  transformations,  the 
change  of  philanthropy  into  charity.  Jesus  with 
the  Samaritan  woman  at  the  side  of  Jacob's  well, 
or  with  the  Magdalen  in  the  pharisee's  house, 
inspires  a  spirit  totally  different  from  that  which 
animates  the  most  benevolent  philosopher.  It  is 
a  spirit  of  supernatural  love,  a  spirit  of  imitation 
of  Jesus,  a  spirit  of  gentle  eagerness  and  affec- 
tionate sacrifice,  which  gives  to  the  exercise  of 
charity  a  winning  sweetness  and  a  nameless 
charm  which  are  entirely  its  own.  The  love  of 
individual  souls  is  purely  a  Christian  thing.  No 
laim-uajj-e  can  describe  it  to  those  who  do  not  feel 
'.t.  If  men  see  it,  and  do  not  sympathize  with  it, 
they  so  mistake  it  that  they  call  it  proselytism. 
They  attribute  to  the  basest  motives  that  which 
comes  precisely  from  the  very  highest.  Indeed, 
from  a  political  or  philosophical  point  of  view 
those  things  which  are  the  most  Christlike  in 
charity  are  the  very  things  which  men  condemn 
as  mischievous,  if  not  immoral.  In  their  view 
harm  is  done  by  treating  men  as  individuals,  not 
as  masses.  Alms  are  squandered.  Unworthy  ob- 
jects get  them.  The  misery  which  punishes  vice 
is  the  object  of  love,  as  well  as  that  which  comes 
of  innocent  misfortune.  Charity  cares  too  little 
about  being  deceived:  it  is  too  impulsive,  too 
irregular,  too  enthusiastic;  above  all,  it  does  not 
make  the  tranquillity  and  well-being  of  the  state 
its  sole  or  primary  object.  Evidently,  then,  the 
manners  and  gestures  of  charity  in  action  are 
wholly  different  from  those  of  philanthropy  in 
v 


82        THE    NECESSITY    OF   THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

action.    The  one  succeeds  with  men,  and  the  uthei 

does  not;  and  the  success  of  charity  is  owing  to 
the  spirit  which  it  imbibes  from  the  Precious 
Blood  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Here  are  many  words  to  prove  a  simple  thing, 
and  a  thing  which  needed  no  proving.  But  it 
brings  home  to  us  more  forcibly  and  more  in  letuil 
the  necessity  of  the  Precious  Blood.  But,  after 
all,  the  grand  necessity  of  it  is  the  necessity  of 
having  our  sins  forgiven,  the  necessity  of  loving 
above  all  created  things  our  most  dear  God  and 
Father.  Let  us  think  for  a  moment.  The  depth 
of  summer  silence  is  all  around.  Those  tall  chest- 
nuts stand  up,  muffled  down  to  the  feet  with  their 
heavy  mantles  of  dark  foliage,  of  which  not  a  leaf 
is  stirring;  There  is  no  sound  of  water,  no  son<>- 
of  bird,  no  rustling  of  any  creature  in  the  grass. 
Those  banks  of  white  cloud  have  no  perceptible 
movement.  The  silence  has  only  been  broken  for 
a  moment,  when  the  clock  struck  from  the  hidden 
church  in  the  elm-girdled  field,  and  the  sound  was 
so  softened  and  stifled  with  leaves  that  it  seemed 
almost  like  some  cry  natural  to  the  woodland.  We 
do  not  close  our  eyes.  Yet  the  quiet  of  the  scene 
has  carried  us  beyond  itself.  What  are  time  and 
earth,  beauty  and  peace,  to  us?  What  is  any  thing 
to  us,  if  our  sins  be  not  forgiven?  Is  not  that  our 
one  want  ?  Does  not  all  our  happiness  come  of 
that  one  "want  being  satisfied?  The  thought  of  its 
being  unsatisfied  is  not  to  be  endured.  Time,  so 
quiet  and  stationary  as  this  summer  noontide, 
makes  us  think  of  eternity,  and  gives  us  a  shadowy 
idea  of  it.  But  the  thought  of  eternity  is  not  to 
be  faced,   if  our  sins    be    not   forgiven-     But  an 


Tin:   NECESSITY    OF   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD.       83 

eternal  ruin — is  that  a  possible  thing?  Possible! 
yes,  inevitable,  if  our  sins  be  not  forgiven.  The 
loss  of  another's  soul  is  a  hideous  thing  to  con- 
template. It  broadens  as  we  look  at  it,  until  our 
head  gets  confused,  and  God  is  obscured.  It  is  a 
possibility  we  turn  away  from  :  what  then  can  we 
do  with  the  fact?  We  think  of  the  sorrows  and 
the  joys  of  a  soul,  of  the  beautiful  significance  of 
its  life,  of  its  manifold  loveliness  and  generosity, 
and  of  all  the  good  that  glittered  like  broken 
crystals  amidst  its  evil.  How  many  persons  loved 
it!  How  many  lives  of  others  it  sweetened  and 
brightened!  How  attractive  often  in  its  cood- 
humored  carelessness  about  its  duty!  God  loved 
it:  it  was  the  idea  of  his  love,  an  eternal  idea.  It 
came  into  the  world  with  his  love  about  it  like  a 
glory.  It  swam  in  the  light  of  his  love,  as  the 
world  swims  in  radiance  day  and  night.  It  has 
gone  into  darkness.  It  is  a  ruin,  a  wreck,  a 
failure,  an  eternal  misery.  Sin  !  What  is  sin,  that 
it  should  do  all  this?  Why  was  there  an}-  sin? 
Why  is  sin  sin  at  all?  We  turn  to  the  majesty  of 
God  to  learn.  Instinctively  we  lift  up  our  ej'es  to 
that  noonday  sun,  and  it  only  blinds  us.  Sin  is 
sin,  because  God  is  God.  There  is  no  getting  any 
further  in  that  direction.  That  soul,  some  soul,  ij 
lost.  What  we  think  cannot  be  put  into  words. 
But  our  own  soul!  That  soul  which  is  oursclf! 
Can  we  by  any  amount  of  violence  think  of  it 
as  lost?  No!  our  own  perdition  is  absolutely 
unthinkable.  Hope  disables  us  from  thinking  it. 
But  we  know  that  it  is  possible.  We  sometimes 
feel  the  possible  verging  into  the  probable.  Wc 
know  how  it  can    be    lost,   and   perceive   actual 


84        THE    NECESSITY   OF    THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

dangers.  We  know  how  alone  it  can  avoid  being 
lost;  and  in  that  direction  matters  do  not  look 
satisfactory.  But  it  must  not  be  lost:  it  shall  not 
be  lost:  it  cannot  be  lost.  The  thought  of  such 
a  thing  is  madness.  See,  then,  the  tremendous 
necessity  of  the  Precious  Blood.  Those  heartless 
chestnut-trees!  how  they  stand  stooping  over  the 
uncut  meadows,  brooding  in  the  sunshine,  as  if 
there  were  no 'problems  in  the  world,  no  uneasi- 
ness in  hearts!  They  make  us  angry.  It  is  their 
verv  stillness  which  has  driven  us  on  these 
thoughts.  It  is  their  very  beaut}T  which  makes 
the  idea  of  eternal  wretchedness  somewhat  more 
intolerable.  Yet  let  us  be  just  to  them:  they  have 
also  driven  somewhat  further  into  our  souls  the 
understanding  of  that  unutterable  necessity  of  the 
Precious  Blood. 

How  precious  is  every  drop  of  that  dear  Blood! 
How  far  more  wonderful  than  all  that  the  natural 
world  contains  is  each  one  of  those  miracles  which 
it  is  working  by  thousands  every  day!  How  would 
creation  be  enriched  by  one  drop  of  it,  seeing  that 
infinite  creations  could  not  attain  to  the  value  of 
it!  and  how  would  the  histoiy  of  creation  bo 
glorified  by  one  manifestation  of  its  omnipotent 
mercy!  "What  are  we  to  think,  then,  of  its  prodi- 
gality? Yet  this  prodigality  is  not  a  mere  mag- 
nificence of  divine  love.  It  is  not  simply  a  divine 
romance.  It  would  indeed  be  adorable  if  it  were 
only  so.  But  to  ray  mind  it  is  even  yet  more 
divine  that  this  prodigality  should  itself  be  an 
absolute  necessity,  and,  therefore,  in  the  majestic 
calmness  and  equabibty  of  the  divine  counsels,  no 
prodigality  at  all. 


THE    NECESSITY    OF   THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD.        85 

We  have  thought  of  the  "world  without  the  Pre- 
cious Blood;  let  us  think  of  it  now  with  only  par- 
tial or  intermitting  access  to  its  saving  fountains. 

Man  fell,  and  God's  justice  was  blameless  in  his 
fall.  Ciod's  mercy  strove  to  hinder  man  from  fall- 
ing,  and  yet  he  fell,  Clod  did  every  thing  for  man, 
short  of  destroying  his  liberty.  The  very  aet  of 
creation  was  a  magnificence  of  mercy.  But  the 
creation  of  man,  not  in  a  state  of  nature,  but  in  a 
state  of  grace,  was  a  glorious  love,  which  could 
proceed  only  from  a  grandeur  as  inexhaustible  as 
that  of  God.  Man  fell,  and  God  was  justified. 
Adam's  descendants  might  have  found  themselves 
hanging  over  the  dread  ab}*ss  of  eternal  woe. 
They  might  have  felt  in  themselves  a  violent  pro- 
pension  to  evil  which  only  just  stopped  short  of  an 
actual  necessity.  The  prospect  before  them  would 
have  been  terrible,  and  yet  they  would  not  have 
one  intelligent  word  to  say  against  it.  If  their 
minds  were  not  darkened,  they  would  have  seen 
that  not  the  justice  only,  but  even  the  love  of  God 
stood  unblemished  in  the  matter.  Nevertheless, 
how  unbearable  the  prospect!  Earth  would  be 
almost  worse  than  hell,  because  it  would  be  hell 
without  the  miserable  peace  of  its  irrevocable  cer- 
tainty. It  would  be  worse,  in  the  same  wa}-  that 
a  hopeless  struggle  is  worse  than  the  death  which 
follows.  Truly  there  might  still  be  hope,  but  then 
it  would  be  such  a  hopeless  hope!  Now  let  us 
suppose  that  God  in  the  immensity  of  his  com- 
passion should  tell  men,  in  this  extremity  of 
wretchedness,  that  he  would  assume  their  nature, 
die  for  them  upon  the  crass,  and  purchase  for  them 
by  1)  s  Precious  Blood    the  inestimable   grace  of 

s 


80         THE    NECESSITY   OF   THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

baptism.  They  should  hare  another  trial  given 
to  them.  They,  who  had  blamed  Adam,  should 
have  a  chance  of  their  own.  They  should  he  re- 
generated, spiritually  born  again  by  the  most 
stupendous  of  miracles.  The}-  should  be  justified, 
and  sanctified  in  their  justification.  The  guilt  of 
original  sin  should  he  al toy-ether  remitted  to  them. 
Not  a  shadow  of  it  should  remain.  Even  their 
liability  to  temporal  punishment  for  that  sin  in 
purgatory  should  be  remitted.  God's  justice 
should  be  satisfied  in  full.  But  the  grace  of  bap- 
tism is  far  more  than  this.  It  restores  us  to  a 
supernatural  standing.  It  makes  us  God's  adopted 
children.  It  does  not  merely  rescue  us  from  hell, 
and  leave  us  to  spend  an  eternity  of  mere  natural 
blessedness  by  the  streams  and  among  the  fruit- 
trees  of  some  terrestrial  paradise.  It  entitles  us 
to  possess  and  enjoy  God_forever.  Moreover,  this 
Sacrament  stores  our  souls  with  most  mysterious 
graces.  It  infuses  celestial  habits  into  us,  and 
endows  us  with  those  unfathomable  wonders,  the 
gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  No  miracle  can  be  more 
complete,  or  more  instantaneous,  or  more  gratui- 
tous, than  the  grace  of  baptism. 

This,  then,  should  be  the  work  of  the  Blood  of 
God;  and  no  more  than  this.  Yet  would  it  not 
seem  to  men  to  be  an  outpouring  of  the  most 
superabounding  love?  Would  it  not  open  to  the 
wisest  of  men  new  depths  in  the  character  of  God, 
and  be  a  new  revelation  of  unsuspected  goodness 
in  him?  The  most  ardent  and  expansive  of  the 
angelic  intelligences  might  have  contemplated  God 
for  ages  and  ages,  and  yet  their  unassisted  science 
would   never  have  dreamed  of  such  a  mystery  as 


THE   NECESSITY    OF    THE   TRECIOUS    BLOOD.        87 

the  Incarnation,  of  such  a  redemption  as  the  prico 
of  the  Precious  Blood.  Yet  does  it  not  make  us 
tremble  to  think  of  no  more  grace  after  baptism? 
Munificent  as  is  thai  justifying  grace,  an  invention 
only  possible  to  a  goodness  which  is  simply  infinite, 
what,  with  our  experience  of  ourselves  and  our 
knowledge  of  others,  would  be  our  dismay  if  that 
one  glorious  access  to  the  Precious  Blood  were  the 
only  one  allowed  to  us!  Surely  a  more  frequent 
access  to  it,  while  it  is  on  God's  side  a  marvellous 
extension  of  a  gratuitous  indulgence,  is  on  our 
side  nothing  less  than  an  imperious  necessity. 

Blessed  be  the  inexhaustible  compassions  of  the 
.Most  High,  we  have  incessant  access  to  the  Pre- 
cious Blood.  Our  seeking  of  our  own  interest  is 
made  to  be  the  glory  of  God.  Our  eager  supply 
of  our  own  needs  is  counted  as  an  act  of  sweetest 
love  to  him,  the  more  sweet  the  more  eager  it  shall 
be.  Yet  it  is  difficult  to  bring  this  gracious  truth 
home  to  ourselves,  unless  we  put  imaginary  cases 
of  a  more  restricted  use  of  the  Precious  Blood.  It 
would  be  a  great  thing  to  be  forgiven  once  more 
after  baptism;  whereas  we  are  being  endlessly 
forgiven,  and  with  as  much  facility  the  thousandth 
time  as  we  were  the  first.  No  greater  amount  of 
attrition  is  needed  to  make  our  thousandth  absolu- 
tion valid  than  was  required  for  our  first.  It  would 
be  a  huge  mercy  if  almost  all  sins  were  capable 
of  absolution,  but  some  few  were  reserved  as  un- 
pardonable after  baptism.  Even  this  would  seem 
to  the  angels  a  wonderful  stretch  of  the  divine 
forbearance.  What  then  must  it  be  to  have  no 
sins,  and  no  reiteration  of  sins,  exempted  from  the 
jurisdiction  of  that  dear  ransom  of  our  soula?     At 


88        THE    NECESSITY   OF   THE    TRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

first  sight  it  looks  as  if  such  an  inveterate  com- 
passion lowered  the  character  of  God  and  im- 
paired the  lustre  of  his  exceeding  sanctity.  In 
this  matter,  as  in  others,  God  must  he  loved  in 
order  to  be  understood.  It  is  the  heart  which 
must  illuminate  the  head.  Accustomed  as  we  are 
to  the  free  participation  of  the  Blood  of  Jesus, 
how  terrible  seems  the  idea  of  men  p-oino-  about 
the  world,  visible  portions  of  hell,  because  they 
have  committed  some  sin  exempted  from  absolu- 
tion !  To  have  met  Cain  upon  his  passionate 
wanderings  over  the  unpeopled  earth  would  have 
been  less  terrible;  since  we  are  not  forbidden  to 
have  hope  for  him.  But  here,  again,  this  incessant 
pardoning,  this  repetition  of  absolution,  this  end- 
less sprinkling  of  our  souls  with  the  Precious 
Blood, — is  it  not  a  necessity  to  our  happiness,  a 
necessity  to  our  salvation?  Astonishing  as  is  the 
prodigality  of  the  Blood  of  Jesus,  could  any  con- 
ceivable restriction  have  been  endured?  It  would 
have  been  something  more  than  a  diminution  of 
our  privileges :  it  would  have  been  a  bar  to  our 
salvation. 

But  let  us  suppose  no  sins  were  exempted  from 
the  pardon  of  the  Precious  Blood,  but  only  that 
that  price  of  our  redemption  was  hard  to  get. 
God  might  have  willed  that  it  should  only  be 
obtaiued  in  Jerusalem,  and  that  distant  nations 
must  seek  it  by  long  and  painful  pilgrimage.  Of 
a  truth,  it  would  be  glad  tidings  to  a  sinner,  that 
at  the  eastern  end  of  the  Mediterranean  there  was  a 
mj'steiious  guarded  well,  which  contained  some  of 
our  Savior's  Blood,  the  touch  of  which  forgave  sin 
to  those  who  possessed  certain  inward  dispositions, 


THE    NECESSITY   OF   THE    PBECIOUS    BLOOD.        89 

but  only  forgave  it  on  the  spot,  in  Jerusalem  itself. 
Most  willingly  would  the  children  of  the  faith  un- 
dergo the  toilsome  pilgrimage,  rather  than  endure 
the  miserable  weight  of  sin.  Zet  what  woulc 
happen  to  the  sick,  who  were  too  weak  to  go,  01 
to  the  aged,  who  had  delayed  too  long,  or  to  the 
dying,  who  have  nothing  before  them  but  despair'* 
How  would  it  fare  with  the  sorely-tempted  poor, 
if  absolution  cost  so  dear?  Shall  the  rich,  or  the 
young,  or  the  robust,  only  be  forgiven?  What 
misery  and  disturbance  also  would  be  there  in  the 
social  relations  of  life,  while  multitudes  were 
evermore  impulsively  pouring  themselves  out  of 
their  homes  in  caravans  of  pilgrimage  !  Or  what 
an  intolerable  inhumanity  would  prisons  be,  if 
the  law  of  man  could  secure  the  eternal  as  well 
as  the  temporal  ruin  of  its  offenders  !  Still,  even 
this  single  well  at  Jerusalem  would  be  a  mercy 
of  God  so  great,  that  it  would  be  incredible,  un- 
imaginable, unless  it  were  revealed.  Or,  again, 
Ave  might  have  to  gain  access  to  the  Blood  of  our 
Redeemer  by  going  through  considerable  bodily 
pain,  or  passing  some  severe  ordeals.  No  one 
could  complain  of  this.  It  would  be  a  mercy 
beyond  the  uttermost  mercies  of  human  law.  Oh, 
does  it  not  make  us  weep  to  think  then  of  our 
own  carelessness,  and  backwardness,  and  dilatory, 
lukewarm  indiffe]  ence  to  that  most  dear  Blood 
which  we  can  have  always  and  everywhere  ?  Wo 
have  come  to  slight  God's  mercies  because  bis 
amazing  goodness  has  made  them  to  be  so  com- 
mon. We  have  not  even  to  seek  the  Blood  of 
Jesus.  It  comes  to  us  :  it  pleads  with  us  :  it  en- 
treats us  to  ac2ept  it:  it  complains;  it  waits;  it 


90        THE    NECESSITY   OF    THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

knocks;  it  cries  out  to  us:  it  ail-but  forces  itself 
upon  our  acceptance. 

But  all  this  mysterious  condescension  of  God  is 
not  the  needless  outburst  of  an  excessive  lov^. 
Alas  for  our  shame  that  we  should  have  to  say 
it!  it  is  a  downright  necessitj'  for  our  salvation. 
Look  at  the  innumerable  confessionals  of  the 
Church,  at  the  hundreds  of  daily  death-beds,  at 
the  countless  retreats  of  suffering  poverty.  Is  the 
Beeking  for  the  Precious  Blood  what  it  ought  to 
be?  Nay,  do  men's  hearts  soften  at  its  tender, 
eloquent  pleading?  Have  not  sinners  to  be  con- 
strained to  come  to  Jesus?  and  even  of  those  who 
are  constrained  to  come  to  him,  how  many  are 
there  who  will  not  let  him  save  them?  One  saint 
speaks  of  souls  flocking  daily  to  perdition  like  the 
flakes  of  a  snow-storm,  blinding  from  their  multi- 
tude. Another  tells  us  of  visions,  in  which  she 
saw  souls  trooping  constantly  into  the  gates  of 
hell,  like  the  rabble  of  autumnal  leaves  swept  into 
thick  eddies  by  the  wind.  Yet  not  a  soul  gets 
there  before  whom  the  Precious  Blood  has  not 
stood  again  and  again,  like  the  angel  before  Ba- 
laam's ass,  and  tried  to  drive  it  back.  If,  then, 
when  all  access  is  so  easy,  and  when  persuasion 
mounts  almost  to  compulsion,  souls  are  so  back- 
ward in  having  recourse  to  the  Precious  Blood, 
what  would  be  the  case  if  any  of  these  imaginary 
difficulties  of  ours  were  allowed  to  come  in  tho 
way?  Alas!  so  it  is,  that  it  is  necessary  to  salva- 
tion that  our  salvation  should  be  easy. 

Let  us  tease  ourselves  with  one  more  imaginary 
case,  and  then  we  will  have  done.  To  many  per- 
sons the  great   burden  of  lite  is  the  secret  of  pre- 


THE    NECESSITY    OF   THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD.        91 

destination;  and  most  men  have  at  times  felt  tho 
uncertainty  of  salvation  as  a  weight  upon  their 
spirits.  To  a  good  man,  whatever  increases  this 
uncertainty  is  a  grave  misfortune.  "Without  a 
private  revelation,  no  one  can  at  any  time  say 
absolutely  that  he  is  in  a  state  of  grace,  not  even 
although  he  may  just  have  received  absolution  in 
the  l>est  dispositions  in  his  power.  Nevertheless 
he  feels  a  moral  certainty  about  it,  which  for  all 
practical  purposes  is  as  good  as  an  assurance.  We 
are  not  then  always  absolutely  certain  that  the 
Precious  Blood  has  been  applied  to  our  souls  in 
absolution.  But  whence  is  it  that  we  derive  that 
moral  certainty  which  is  our  consolation  and  our 
rest?  From  the  fact  that,  when  properly  re- 
ceived, the  operation  of  the  Precious  Blood  is 
infallible.  \Yhat  an  unhappiness  it  would  be,  if 
this  were  not  so!  The  power  of  the  Blood  of 
Jesus  is  never  doubtful,  its  work  never  incom- 
plete. Moreover,  God  has  gathered  up  its  virtue 
in  a  very  special  way  into  certain  Sacraments. 
He  has  made  its  application  almost  visible.  He 
has  tied  its  miracles  as  it  were  to  time,  and  place, 
and  matter,  and  form,  so  as  to  bring  us  as  near  to 
a  certainty  of  our  being  in  a  state  of  grace  as  is 
compatible  with  his  laws  and  our  own  best  inte- 
rests. If  we  could  be  no  more  sure  that  we  had 
validly  received  absolution  in  confession,  than  we 
can  be  sure  we  have  ever  made  an  act  of  perfect 
contrition,  we  should  be  in  a  sad  plight,  and  go 
through  our  spiritual  exercises  and  our  inward 
trials  in  a  very  dowrncast  and  melancholy  way. 
Our  state  would  be,  at  least  in  that  one  respect, 
something    like    the    state    of    those   outride   tho 


92        TIIE    NECESSITY    OF   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

Church,  who  are  not  living  members  of  Christ, 
nor  partakers  in  his  saving  jurisdiction  in  the 
Sacrament  of  penance.  If  the  Precious  Blood  had 
been  shed,  and  yet  we  had  no  priesthood,  no  Sa- 
craments, no  jurisdiction,  no  sacramcntals,  no 
mystical  life  of  the  visible  unity  of  the  Church, — 
life,  so  it  seems,  would  be  almost  intolerable.  This 
is  the  condition  of  those  outside  the  Church;  and 
certainly  as  we  grow  older,  as  our  experience 
widens,  as  our  knowledge  of  ourselves  deepens,  as 
our  acquaintance  with  mankind  increases,  the  less 
hopeful  do  our  ideas  become  regarding  the  salva- 
tion of  those  outside  the  Roman  Church.  We 
make  the  most  we  can  of  the  uncovenanted  mer- 
cies of  God,  of  the  invisible  soul  of  the  Church,  of 
the  doctrine  of  invincible  ignorance,  of  the  easi- 
ness of  making  acts  of  contrition,  and  of  the  visi- 
ble moral  goodness  among  men  ;  and  yet  what  are 
these  but  straws  in  our  own  estimation,  if  our  own 
chances  of  salvation  had  to  lean  their  weight  upon 
them  ?  The}T  wear  out,  or  they  break  down.  They 
are  fearfully  counterweighted  by  other  considera- 
tions. We  have  to  draw  on  our  imaginations  in 
order  to  fill  up  the  picture.  They  are  but  theories 
at  best,  theories  unhelpful  except  to  console  those 
who  are  forward  to  be  deceived  for  the  sake  of 
those  they  love, — theories  often  very  fatal  by  keep 
ing  our  charity  in  check  and  interfering  with  that 
restlessness  of  converting  love  in  season  and  out 
of  season,  and  that  impetuous  agony  of  prayer, 
upon  which  Cod  may  have  made  the  salvation  of 
our  friends  depend.  Alas!  the  more  familiar  we 
ourselves  become  with  the  operations  of  grace,  the 
further  we  advance  into  the  spiritual  life,  the  more 


THE   NECESSITY   OF   TIIE    TRECIOUS    BLOOD.        93 

we  meditate  on  the  character  of  God,  and  taste  in 
contemplation  the  savor  of  his  holiness,  the  more 
to  our  ej'es  does  grace  magnify  itself  inside  the 
Church,  and  the  more  dense  and  forlorn  becomes 
the  darkness  which  is  spread  over  those  outside. 
Yet  not  indeed  to  this  state, — God  forbid! — but 
to  a  painful  partial  resemblance  of  it,  should  we 
be  brought,  it'  God's  tender  considerate  love  had 
not  as  it  were  localized  the  Precious  Blood  in  his 
stupendous  Sacraments.  Truly  the  Sacraments 
are  an  invention  of  love,  yet  are  they  not  also  as 
truly  a  necessity  of  our  salvation,  not  only  as 
applying  the  Precious  Blood  to  our  souls,  but  as 
enabling  faith  to  ascertain  its  application?  Would 
not  the  divine  assurance  of  our  salvation  be  a 
verv  heaven  begun  on  earth  ?  Yet  the  Sacra- 
ments  are  the  nearest  approach  to  such  a  sweet 
assurance  as  the  love  of  our  heavenly  Father 
saw  to  be  expedient  for  the  multitude  of  his 
children. 

The  Precious  Blood,  then,  is  the  greatest,  the 
most  undeniable,  of  our  necessities.  There  is  no 
true  life  without  it.  Yet,  and  it  very  much  con- 
cerns us  to  bring  this  home  to  ourselves,  all  crea- 
tion could  not  merit  it.  Necessary  as  it  is,  it  is  in 
no  way  due  to  us.  It  is  not  a  right.  God's  love 
toward  us  had  been  a  romance  already.  It  was 
wonderful  what  he  had  done  to  us.  It  is  almost 
incredible  even  now  when  we  think  of  it.  Wo 
know  the  unspeakable  tenderness  of  our  Creator, 
how  placable  he  is.  how  soft  of  heart,  how  prone 
to  forgive,  how  easy  to  be  persuaded.  We  know 
that  the  needs  of  his  creatures  plead  witli  him 
more  eloquently  than  we  can  tell.    Yet  no  necessi- 


04        THE    NECESSITY    OF    THE    TRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

tics  could  have  claimed  tho  Precious  Blood,  no 
merits  could  have  won  it,  no  prayers  could  have 
obtained  it.  In  truth,  no  created  intelligence  of 
ani>;el  or  of  man  could  have  imagined  it. 

Were  heaven  to  he  filled  with  saints  in  endless 
millions,  as  holy  as  St.  Joseph,  the  Baptist,  or  the 
Apostles,  and  were  their  holiness  allowed  to  merit, 
not  in  millions  of  ages  could  their  united  merits 
have  earned  one  drop  of  the  Precious  Blood.  _If_ 
all  those  starry  spirits  in  the  godlike  realm  of 
angels  had  consented  to  sink  their  grandeurs  in 


the  penalties  of  hell  for  thousands  of  revolving 
epochs,  or  even  had  they  consented  to  be  annihi- 
lated in  sacrifice  to  the  justice  of  God,  never  could 
they  have  merited  the  Precious  blood.  If  all  the 
merits,  graces,  gifts,  and  powers  of  our  dearest 
Mother  had  been  possible  without  the  Precious 
Blood,  they  might  have  ascended  as  sweet  incense 
before  God  forever,  and  yet  in  no  possible  dura- 
tion of  time  could  they  have  merited  the  Precious 
Blood.  l\Tot  all  these  together,  saints,  angels,  and 
Mary,  with  all  their  glorious  holiness,  growing  yet 
more  glorious  in  endless  ages,  could  have  bought 
one  drop  of  Precious  blood,  or  merited  that  mys- 
tery of  the  Incarnation  whose  wonderful  redeem- 
ing power  resides  in  the  Precious  Blood.  Oh,  how 
this  thought  overwhelms  my  heart  with  joy, — to 
have  to  rest  upon  the  free  sovereignty  of  God 
instead  of  my  own  wretched  littleness,  to  be  always 
thus  thrown  upon  the  gratuitous  magnificence  of 
God,  to  be  forever  and  forever  owing  all,  and  such 
an  all,  to  Jesus  !  Merciful  G6d  !  this  is  the  joy  of 
eatth  which  is  roarost  to  a  joy  of  heaven ! 


TIIE    EMPIRE    OF    THE    PRECIOUS    HLOOD.  Ij5 


CHAPTEK  III. 

THE    EMPIRE    OF    THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD 

The  life  of  God  is  very  vast.  It  is  a  thing  to  bo 
thought  rather  than  to  be  spoken  of,  nay,  to  be 
seen  in  the  mind  rather  than  to  be  thought.  It  is 
very  vast.  It  seems  to  grow  vaster  every  day. 
We  kneel  down  before  it  in  our  prayers,  as  a  man 
might  kneel  to  pray  on  a  great  sea-shore.  God 
lies  before  us  as  an  ocean  of  infinite  life.  We 
kneel  upon  the  shore.  But  behind  us  rolls  the 
same  great  ocean.  Suddenly  it  is  at  our  right 
hand  and  on  our  left.  We  look  upward,  but  the 
sky  is  gone.  An  ocean  rolls  where  there  was  sky 
when  we  first  knelt  down  to  pray.  The  boundless 
waters  stretch  above  us  like  a  living  canopy.  The 
shore  on  which  we  kneel  gives  way.  It  is  no 
shore.  We  are  kneeling  on  the  waters.  The  same 
eternal  ocean  rolls  beneath  us.  We  are  hemmed 
in  on  every  side  by  this  ever-blessed  ocean  of  infinite 
being.  How  full  it  is  of  burning  life,  how  master- 
ful, how  soundless,  how  unchangeable! 

The  life  of  God  is  very  vast.  I  feel  it  overawing 
me  more  and  more,  as  I  go  on  thinking  of  it.  God 
is  very  simple.  He  is  simply  Crod.  lie  is  to  be 
adored  in  his  simplicity."  His  perfections  are  him- 
self, and  he  is  simply  all  his  perfections.  His  per- 
fections are  not  manifold.  They  are  but  one.  He 
is  himself  his  only  perfection.     His  attributes  aro 


00  THE    EMPIRE    OF   THE   PREOTOTTS   BLOOD. 

our  ways  of  looking  at  him,  of  speaking  of  him, 
of  worshipping  him.  His  perfections  are  not 
separate  from  each  other,  nor  from  himself.  "We 
cannot  comprehend  so  simple  a  simplicity.  We 
have  not  purity  of  understanding  sufficient  to 
apprehend  so  infinitely  pure  an  idea.  It  is  on 
this  account  that  we  take  the  idea  of  God  to 
pieces  in  our  own  minds,  and  contemplate  and 
love  and  worship  him  from  a  thousand  points  of 
view.  We  have  no  other  way  of  dealing  with  the 
incomprehensible.  Speaking  then  of  the  divine 
perfections  in  this  sense,  it  appears  to  me  that 
none  of  his  attributes  call  forth  so  much  worship 
in  my  heart  as  his  life.  His  life  amazes  me;  and 
yet  it  melts  me  with  love.  He  seems  to  me  least 
like  an  infinitely  perfect  creature,  when  I  contem- 
plate him  as  life;  and  when  he  is  least  like  an  in- 
finitely perfect  creature,  he  is  most  like  the  in- 
describable God.  That  view  of  him  is  less  distinct 
than  many  others;  hut  it  appears  to  my  mind 
more  true  on  that  very  account. 

The  life  of  God  is  very  vast.  This  is  the  thought 
which  comes  to  me  when  I  put  before  myself  the 
empire  of  the  Precious  Blood.  The  life  of  God  is 
blessedness  in  his  own  self.  It  is  the  joy  of  his 
unity,  the  fact  of  his  simplicity.  Once  he  was 
without  creatures;  and  the  calm  jubilee  of  his 
immutable  life  went  on.  There  could  be  no  im- 
pulses in  that  which  had  had  no  beginning.  His 
life  started  from  no  point,  and  reached  to  no 
point;  therefore  it  could  have  no  momentum  :  that 
is  a  created  idea.  He  was  imperturbable  bliss. 
What  can  be  more  self-collected  than  immensity? 
His  infinite  tenderness  comes  from  his  being  im- 


THE    EMriRE    OF    THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.  97 

pcrturbable,  though  at  first  sight  there  seems  to 
be  contradiction  between  the  two.  When  he  was 
without  creatures,  they  were  not  a  want  to  Lirn. 
His  unbeginning  life  was  unspeakably  centred  in 
himself,  and  so  went  on.  He  became,  what  he  had 
not  been  before,  a  Creator.  But  no  change  passed 
upon  him.  All  his  acts  had  been  in  himself  before : 
now  he  acted  outside  himself.  But  no  change 
passed  upon  him.  Hitherto  all  his  acts,  which 
were  the  Generation  of  the  Son  and  the  Procession 
of  the  Holy  Ghost,  had  been  necessary:  now  his 
creative  acts  were  free.  Still  no  change  passed 
upon  him.  Still  the  calm  jubilee  of  the  unbegin- 
ning life  went  on.  As  it  was  before  creation,  so 
it  was  after  it,  a  jubilant  life  of  unutterable  sim- 
plicity. These  are  things  we  can  only  learn  by 
loving.  "Without  love  they  are  merely  hard  words. 
God  worked,  and  then  God  rested.  Yet  creation 
had  been  no  interruption  of  his  everlasting  rest. 
Nevertheless,  that  Sabbath  of  God,  of  which  Scrip- 
ture tells  us,  is  a  wonderful  mystery,  and  one  full 
of  repose  to  toiling,  seeking,  straining  creatures. 
What  was  that  seventh  day's  rest?  To  the  un- 
toiling  Creator  preservation  is  as  much  an  effort 
as  creation,  and  quite  as  great  a  mystery.  But 
even  creation,  the  evoking  of  being  out  of  nothing, 
was  not  suspended.  Human  souls  are  forever 
being  created,  created  out  of  nothing.  Perhaps 
new  species  of  animals  may  be  so  also.  What 
then  was  his  rest?  Perhaps  it  is  only  another 
name  for  that  expansive  love,  which  as  it  were 
arrested  itself  to  bless  its  beautiful  creation  out 
of  its  extreme  contentment  and  ineffable  com- 
placency. 

a  9 


98     THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  PRECIOUS  BLOOD. 

Still  the  vast  life  of  God  goes  en.  He  was  free 
to  create;  and  he  made  his  creation  free.  Per- 
haps those  two  things  have. much  to  do  with  each 
other.  He  made  himself  an  empire  outside  him- 
self, and  crowned  himself  over  it,  the  kingliest  of 
kings.  God  is  very  royal.  Royalty  is  the  seal 
which  is  set  on  all  his  perfections,  and  hy  which 
we  see  how  they  arc  one.  He  enfranchised  his 
empire,  and  then  began  to  reign.  Still  there  was 
no  change.  His  free  people  dethroned  him.  Often- 
times now  in  the  depths  of  prayer  the  love  of  his 
saints  beholds  him  sitting  in  dust  and  ashes  an  un- 
crowned king,  as  it  were  piteously.  But  all  this  is 
embraced  within  his  vast  life  without  a  shadow  of 
change.  It  was  part  of  the  eternal  idea  of  crea- 
tion, that  one  of  the  Divine  Persons  should  assume 
a  created  nature.  The  Second  Person  did  so.  He 
has  carried  it  to  heaven,  and  placed  it  in  the  bosom 
of  the  Holy  Trinity  for  endless  worship.  This 
has  displaced  nothing.  The  vast  life  goes  on.  No 
pulse  beats  in  it.  No  succession  belongs  to  it. 
No  novelty  happens  to  it.  The  Precious  Blood  of 
the  Son's  Human  Nature  would  have  been  a  pure 
beauty,  a  pure  treasure  of  God,  an  unimaginable 
created  life,  if  there  had  been  no  sins.  But  thei*e 
was  sin,  and  the  destiny  of  the  Precious  Blood  was 
changed.  But  there  was  no  change  in  the  divine 
life.  The  Precious  Blood  became  the  ransom  for 
sin.  The  Precious  Blood  had  to  conquer  back  *o 
God  his  revolted  empire.  It  had  to  crown  him 
again,  and  to  be  his  imperial  vicegerent.  What 
stupendous  mutabilities  are  these!  Yet  there  is 
no  change  in  the  vast  life  of  God.  Its  very  vast- 
ness  makes  it  incapable  of  change.     It  has  no  ex 


THE    EMriRE    OF   TIIE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD.  99 

pcricnces.  It  goes  through  nothing.  It  cannot 
begin,  or  cud,  or  suffer.  It  works  while  it  rests; 
and  it  rests  while  it  works;  and  it  neither  works 
nor  rests,  hut  simply  lives,  simply  is.  O  adorable 
life  of  God!  blessed  a  thousand  thousand  times  he 
thou  in  the  darkness  of  thy  glory,  in  the  incom- 
prehensible sweetness  of  thy  mystery! 

To  us  the  Precious  Blood  is  inseparable  from  the 
life  of  God.     It  is  the  Blood  of  the  Creator,  the 
agent  of  redemption,  the  power  of  sanctification. 
Moreover,  to  our  eyes  it  is  a  token  of  something 
which  we  should  call  a  change  in  God,  if  we  did 
not  know  that  there  could  not  he  change  in  him. 
It  seems  to  give  God  a  past,  to  recover  for  him 
something    which    he    had    lost,    to   he   a    second 
thought,  to  remedy  a  failure,  to  he  a  new  orna- 
ment in  the  Divinity,  a  created  joy  in  the  very 
centre  of  the  uncreated  jubilee.     The  empire  of 
the  Precious  Blood  is  due  to  its  position  in  the 
history    and    economy   of  creation,    or,    in    other 
words,  to  its  relation  to  the  adorable  life  of  God. 
It  seems  to  explain   the  eternity  before  creation, 
inasmuch  as  it  reveals  to  us  the  eternal  thoughts 
of    God,    his    compassionate   designs,    his   primal 
decrees,  and  his  merciful  persistence  in  carrying 
out  his  designs  of  love.     It  makes  visible  much 
that  in  its  own  nature  was  invisible.     It  casts  a 
light  backward,  even  upon  the  uttermost  recesses 
of  that  old  eternity.    Just  as  some  actions  disclose 
more  of  a  man's  character  than  other  actions,  so 
the  Precious  Blood  is  in  itself  a  most  extensive 
and  peculiarly  vivid  revelation  of  the  character  of 
God.     The    fact   of  his   redeeming   us,   and,  still 
more,  the  way  in  which   he  has  redeemed  us,  (lis- 


100        THE   EMPIRE    OF   THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

closes  to  us  his  reason  for  creating  us;  and  when 
we  get  some  view,  however  transient  and  indis- 
tinct, of  his  reason  for  creating  us,  we  seem  to 
look  into  the  life  he  leads  as  God.  The  light  is  so 
light  that  it  is  darkness;  hut  the  darkness  is  know- 
ledge, and  the  knowledge  love. 

We  are  to  speak  of  the  empire  of  the  Precious 
Blood.  But  we  must  first  see  in  what  its  royal 
rio-hts  are  founded.  The  Precious  Blood  ministers 
to  all  the  perfections  of  God.  It  is  the  one  grand 
satisfaction  of  his  justice.  It  is  one  of  the  most 
excellent  inventions  of  his  wisdom.  It  is  the  prin- 
cipal feeder  of  his  glory.  It  is  the  repose  of  his 
purity.  It  is  the  delight  of  his  mercy.  It  is  the 
participation  of  his  power.  It  is  the  display  of 
his  magnificence.  It  is  the  covenant  of  his  pa- 
tience. It  is  the  reparation  of  his  honor.  It  is 
the  tranquillity  of  his  anger.  It  is  the  imitation 
of  his  fruitfulness.  It  is  the  adornment  of  his 
sanctity.  It  is  the  expression  of  his  love.  But, 
above  all,  it  ministers  to  the  dominion  of  God.  It 
is  a  conqueror  and  conquers  for  him.  It  invades 
the  kingdom  of  darkness,  and  sweeps  whole 
regions  with  its  glorious  light.  It  humbles  the 
rebellious,  and  brings  home  the  exiles,  and  re- 
claims the  aliens.  It  pacifies;  it  builds  up;  it 
gives  laws;  it  restores  old  things;  it  inaugurates 
new  things.  It  grants  amnesties;  and  dispenses 
pardons;  and  it  wonderfully  administers  the  king- 
dom it  has  wonderfully  reconquered.  It  is  the 
crown,  the  sceptre,  and  the  throne  of  God's  in- 
visible  dominion. 

I  said  its  rights  were  founded  in  its  relation  to 
the  life  of  God ;  and   its  relation  has  to  do  espe* 


THE    EMriRE    OF    THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD.         101 

cially  with  that  which  is  kingly  and  paternal  in 
the  character  of  the  Creator      The  dominion  of 
God  is  part  of  his  invisible  beauty;  but   the  Pre- 
cious Blood  is  the  scarlet   mantle  of  his  eternal 
royalty,     (iod    became    a    king    by    becoming   a 
Creator.     It  was  thus  he  gained  an   empire  over 
which    his    insatiable   love    might   rule.     We   are 
obliged  to  speak  of  creation  as  if  it  were  a  gain 
to  Him  who  has  all  fulness  in  himself.    He  created 
because  of  his  perfections,  because  he  was  God, 
because  he  was  the  infinitely  blessed  God  that  he 
is.     Temporal  things  came  into  existence  because 
there  were  eternal  things.     Time  is  a  growth  of 
the  ungrowing  eternity.    Nature  is  very  beautiful, 
whether  we  think  of  angelic  or  of  human  nature. 
Created    nature    is    a   shadow  of    the    Uncreated 
Nature,    so    real    and    so    bright    that  we    cannot 
think    of   it   without   exceeding   reverence.  \  Yet 
God   created   neither  angels  nor  men   in  a  state 
of  nature.     This   is,    to   my  mind,  the  most  won- 
derful and  the   most  suggestive   thing  which  wo 
know  about  God.     He  would  have  no  reasonable 
nature,  even  from  the  very  first,  which  should  not 
be  partaker  of  his  Divine  Nature.     This  is  the 
very  meaning  of  a  state  of  grace.     He  as  it  were 
clung   to    his    creation    while    he   let   it   go.     He 
would  not  leave  it  to  breathe  for  one  instant  in 
a  merely  natural  state.     The  very  act  of  creation 
was  full  of  the  fondness  of  maternal  jealousy.     It 
was,  to   speak  in   a  human  way,  as  if  he  feared 
that   it   would    wander   from   him,  and   that   his 
attractions  would  be  too  mighty  for  the  littleness 
of  finite  beings.     He  made  it  free;   yet   he  em- 
braced it  so  that  it  should  be  next  to  impossible  it 

9* 


102 


THE    EMPIRE    fF    THE    TRECIOES    BLOOD. 


should  leave  him.  He  gave  it  liberty,  yet  almost 
overpowered  its  liberty  with  caresses  the  very 
moment  that  he  gave  it.  Ob,  that  Majesty  of  God, 
which  seems  clothed  with  such  worshipful  tranquil- 
lit}-  in  the  eternity  before  creation,  how  passionate, 
how  yearning,  how  mother-like,  how  full  of  inven- 
tions and  excesses,  it  appears  in  the  act  of  creation  ! 
God  lost  nothing  by  the  fall  of  angels  or  of  men. 
Yet,  in  our  way  of  thinking,  how  great  must  have 
been  the  loss  to  a  love  which  had  longed  so  pas- 
sionately to  keep  his  creation  with  him  !  It  was 
gone  now.  That  mysterious  gift  of  liberty  had 
been  too  strong  for  that  other  mysterious  tender- 
ness of  creating  us  in  a  state  of  grace.  There 
was  nothing  of  failure,  or  of  disappointment,  or 
of  frustrate  love,  in  all  this.  But  how  there  was 
not  we  cannot  tell.  We  know  that  the  vast  life 
of  God  went  on  the  same  in  its  unshadowed, 
unimpeded  gladness.  Yet  to  our  ignorance  it 
seems  as  if  the  Creator  would  have  to  boo-in  all 
over  again,  as  if  he  would  have  to  pause,  to  collect 
himself,  to  hold  a  council  of  his  attributes,  and 
either  to  retire  into  himself  or  begin  afresh.  None 
of  these  things  are  compatible  with  his  everlasting 
majesty.  They  are  only  our  ways  of  express?~g 
those  divine  things  which  are  unspeakable.  But 
what  is  before  us?  By  an  excess  of  tenderness, 
which  only  grows  more  amazing  the  longer  we 
think  of  it;  God  had  cloistered  his  ci'eation  in  the 
supernatural  state  of  grace.  The  cloister  was 
broken.  Almost  the  first  use  of  angelic  and. 
human  freedom  had  been  sacrilege.  What  will 
God  do?  Creative  love  has  no  mutabilities. 
Mercy  itself  shall  find  out  a  way  to  satisfy  jus- 


THE   EMPIRE   OF   THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.         lOo 

tice,  rather  than  that  this  dear  creation  shall  he 
lost.  Time  shall  not  he  a  grave  in  which  eternal 
ideas,  shall  be  buried.  The  lost  shall  be  found  j 
the  fallen  shall  be  raised;  the  ruined  shall  be 
redeemed.  The  original  idea  of  creation  shall  bo 
reinstated,  without  the  gift  of  freedom  being  with- 
drawn. The  everlasting  scheme  of  divine  love 
shall  be  inaugurated  again  in  all  the  plenitude 
of  divine  power,  with  all  the  splendor  of  divine 
wisdom,  only  illustrated  now  even  more  than 
before  with  the  flames  of  divine  love.  The  act 
shall  be  the  act  of  God,  the  act  equally  of  all  the 
Three  Divine  Pei\sons.  Yet  it  shall  be  appro- 
priated to  One  of  Them,  to  the  Second  Person. 
The  instrument  shall  be  a  created  thing,  not 
created  only  for  the  purpose,  for  it  would  have 
been  even  if  sin  had  not  been;  but  it  shall  be 
a  created  thing  whose  value  shall  be  simply  in- 
finite, because  of  its  belonging  to  an  Uncreated 
Person.     It  was  the  Precious  Blood. 

One  of  the  ways,  in  which  God  chiefly  makes 
himself  known  to  us,  is  by  his  choices.  Choice 
reveals  character;  and,  when  we  know  the  cha- 
racter and  excellence  of  him  who  chooses,  the 
choice  enables  us  both  to  understand  and  appre- 
ciate the  object  chosen  Thus,  when  God  ehoose& 
the  weak  things  of  the  world  to  confound  the 
strong,  and  the  foolish  things  to  confound  the 
wise,  he  makes  a  very  broad  revelation  to  us  ot 
his  character.  He  discloses  principles  of  action 
quito  alien  from  those  of  creatures,  and  never 
adopted  by  them  except  from  supernatural  mo- 
tives md  in  conscious  imitation  of  him.  VV«? 
know  xlso  that  the  things  in  question  are  in  then 


104         THE    EMPIRE   OP   THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

selves  weak  and  foolish,  because  he  chose  them  on 
that  account.  In  the  same  way,  when  he  chooses 
persons  for  some  great  and  high  end,  his  very 
choice  endows  them  with  gifts  proportionate  to 
their  work  and  dignit}r.  "We  have  often  no  other 
means  of  judging  except  his  choice.  It  is  thus 
that  we  measure  the  immense  holiness  of  the 
Apostles.  It  is  thus  that  we  learn  the  incom- 
parable sanctity  of  the  Baptist.  It  is  by  com- 
pai'ing  God's  choice  of  him  with  the  office  he  was 
to  fill,  that  we  come  to  see  the  glory  and  the 
grandeur  of  St.  Joseph,  and  to  contemplate  with 
reverent  awe  the  heights  of  a  holiness  to  which 
such  familiarity  with  God  was  permitted.  We 
are  astonished  that  familiarity  should  be  the  cha- 
racteristic of  devotion  to  a  saint  so  high;  and  yet 
we  perceive  that  it  must  be  naturally  the  special 
grace  of  a  devotion  to  one  who  outdid  all  others 
in  the  spirit  of  adoration  because  he  outstripped 
all  others  in  tender  familiarities  with  God.  It  is 
thus  also  that  we  gain  some  idea  of  the  beauty 
and  splendor  of  St.  Michael,  one  of  the  foremost 
jewels  in  the  crown  of  God's  glorious  creation. 
Thus,  also,  the  choice  of  God  is  the  only  measuro 
by  which  we  can  approach  to  any  knowledge  of 
his  Immaculate  Mother.  As  her  office  was  incon- 
ceivable either  by  angel  or  by  saint,  unless  it  had 
been  revealed,  so  also  is  the  immensity  of  her 
holiness.  The  choice  of  God  lights  up  vast  tracts 
of  her  magnificence,  and  shows  us  also  how  much 
there  is  left  for  us  to  learn  and  to  enjoy  in  heaven. 
The  grandeur  of  her  office  is  infinite,  as  St.  Thomas 
says,  and  the  omnipotence  of  God  could  not  create 
a  grander  office :  what  then  must  be  the  infinity 


THE    EMriRE    OF   THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD.         105 

of  her  grace?     It  is  God  who  chose  her,  the  God 
of  numberless   perfections,    of  illimitable   power, 
and  of  lavish    munificence.     His   choice   tells   ua 
that  the  mighty  empress  of  heaven  was  adorned 
with  the  utmost  participation  of  the  divine  splen- 
dor  of    which    a   creature    was    capable.      What 
regalia  must  they  he  which  come  out  of  the  inex- 
haustible treasures  of  God,  and  which  are  chosen 
for  her  whom  he  chose  eternally  to  be  his  blessed 
Mother?     So,  finally,  we  get  our  idea  of  the  worth 
of  the  Precious  Blood  by  seeing  the  end  for  which 
the  Creator  chose  it.     It  is  an  idea  which  cannot 
be   put   into  words,   or   be  estimated  by  human 
figures.     If  we  may  dare  so  to  speak,  God  chose 
it  as   the  auxiliary  by  which   he  would  save  him- 
self in  the  day  of  battle  with  the  powers  of  dark- 
ness, when  the  battle  was  going  against  him,  and 
when  he  vouchsafed  to  appear  as  if  put  to  his  last 
resource.      I'  know   not   how   else   to   state   that 
choice  of  his,  and  the  circumstances  under  which 
he  made  it,  which  cover  with  such  dazzling  splen- 
dor the  redeeming  Blood  of  Jesus.     It  had  to  save 
a  falling  creation,  which   God    had    hindered  his 
own  omnipotence  from  saving,  because  he  had  con- 
ferred upon  it  the  gift  of  freedom. 

It  is  hard  to  breathe  in  heights  like  these.  We 
have  climbed  the  mountains  of  God's  primal  de- 
crees, and  have  penetrated  to  those  first  fountains 
of  creation  which  lie  far  up  in  the  solitude  of  eter- 
nity.! It  is  difficult  to  breathe  in  such  places,  amid 
such  lonely  sublimities,  in  such  divine  wilder- 
nesses, where  the  features  are  so  unlike  those  of 
earthly  scenery.  Let  us  then  rest  a  while,  and 
think  of  our  own  poor  selves.     Of  what  avail  to 


106         TEL'   EMTIRE    OF    TnE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

us  is  all  this  magnificent  election  of  the  Precious 
Blood,  its  astonishing  relation  to  the  immutahlo 
life  of  God,  its  intrinsic  dignity  in  the   plans  of 
the  Creator,  and  the  fearfulness  of  its  resplendent 
beauty  as  the  sole  successful  auxiliary  of  the  God 
of  Hosts,  unless  it  is  the  one  joy  of  our  lives  that 
we  ourselves  are  its  happy  conquest  ?     What  use 
is  it  to  us  that  it  looks  as  if  it  had  rescued  the 
Creator  from  failure,  if  it  does  not  ransom  us  from 
sin  ?     What  does  it  matter  to  us  that  it  makes 
wonderful    harmony    between     God's     seemingly 
opposite  decrees,  if  it  does  not  make  sweet  peace 
between    our    heavenly    Father    and    ourselves? 
The  Precious  Blood  saved  God  an  empire;  and  he 
has  given  it  that  empire  for  its  own.      It  is  the 
one  thing  needful  for  ourselves,  that  we  should 
belong  to  its  empire  and  be  happy  beneath   its 
rule.     One  sin  forgiven,  one  sinful   habit  brought 
into    subjection,    one    ruling    passion     uniformly 
tamed,  one  worldliness  courageously  kept  down, 
■ — these  are  more  to  us  than  the  theological  <rlo- 
ries  of  the  Precious  Blood.     Indeed,  these  glories 
are  chiefly  glorious  to  us,  in  that  they  tell  us  more 
and  more  of  our  dear  God,  that  they  widen  our 
minds  and  deepen  our  hearts  to  make  more  room 
for  him,  and   that   they  heat  the  furnace   of  our 
love  seven  times  hotter  than  it  was  before.    Theo- 
logy would  be  a  science  to  be  specially  impatient 
with,   if  it   rested    only   in    speculation.     To  my 
mind  it  is  the  best  fuel  of  devotion,  the  best  fuel 
of  divine  love.     It  catches  fire  quickest;  it  makes 
least  smoke;  it  burns  longest;  and  it  throws  out 
most  heat  while  it  is  burning.     It  is  the  best  fuel 
of  love,  until  the  soul  is  raised  to  high  degrees  of 


THE    EMTIRE    OF    THE    TRECIOUS    BLOOD.         107 

mystical  contemplation  ;  and  then,  as  if  to  show 
how  needful  it  was  still,  God  infuses  theological 
science  even  into  the  ignorant  and  youthful.  If 
a  science  tells  of  God,  yet  does  not.  make  tho 
listener's  heart  burn  within  him,  it  must  follow 
either  that  the  science  is  no  true  theology,  or  that 
the  heart  which  listens  unmoved  is  stupid  and 
depraved.  In  a  simple  and  loving  heart  theology 
burns  like  a  sacred  tire. 

But,  if  this  is  the  relation  of  the  Precious  Blood 
to  Creation,  in  what  relation  does  it  stand  toward 
the  Incarnation?  This  also  we  must  consider. 
The  Incarnation  of  One  of  the  Three  Divine  Per- 
sons was  part  of  the  original  idea  of  Creation.  It 
expresses  in  God  the  same  mysterious  and  adorable 
yearning  which  was  manifested  in  his  creating 
angels  and  men  in  a  state  of  grace.  If  there  had 
been  no  sin,  still  the  Second  Person  of  the  Holy 
Trinity  would  have  been  man.  Jesus  Christ  was 
eternally  predestinated  to  be  King  of  angels  and 
of  men,  the  sovereign  of  all  creation  in  rijrht  of 
his  created  nature,  even  if  there  had  been  no  fall, 
and  no  redemption.  I  am  repeating  what  I  have 
said  before;  but  I  must  do  so  in  order  to  be  clear. 
As  God  in  his  Divine  Nature  was  the  Sovereign 
Lord  of  all  creation,  so  Jesus  in  his  Created  Nature 
was  to  be  the  King  of  kings  and  Lord  of  lords. 
He  would  have  come  and  lived  among  us.  Ho 
would  have  been  born  of  the  same  blessed  and 
most  dear  Mother.  But  his  Bethlehem  and  his 
Nazareth  and  his  Jerusalem  would  have  been  very 
different.  He  would  have  had  no  Egypt  and  no 
Calvary.  He  might  perchance  have  dwelt  lono-er 
with    us   than  Three-and-Thirty  years.      But   all 


108  THE    EMPIRE    OF   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOTV 

tne  while,  wherever  he  was,  he  would  have  been 
radiant  as  on  the  summit  of  Mount  Thabor,  tho 
beauty  and  the  glory  streaming  out  from  him 
incessantly,  lie  would  have  had  no  Passion,  no 
Kesurrection ;  and  perhaps  he  would  not  have 
ascended  till  the  Day  of  .Doom.  lie  would  have 
had  the  same  Sacred  Heart,  tho  same  Precious 
Blood.  His  Blood  would  have  been  a  living  joy 
to  him,  a  beauty  and  a  joy  to  all  creation.  Perhaps 
his  Blood  would  still  have  been  the  wine  of  im- 
mortality to  his  elect.  It  might  have  been  still 
the  Blood  of  the  Eucharist.  There  might  have 
been  the  Sacrament  without  the  Sacrifice.  It 
might  have  been  the  chalice  of  his  espousals  with 
the  soul.  As  some  theologinns  say  there  might 
have  been  Communion  before  the  Incarnation  for 
the  saints  of  the  old  covenant,  if  God  had  so  willed, 
much  more  might  it  have  been  so  with  the  im- 
passible and  glorious  Incarnation,  had  there  been 
no  sin.  The  Precious  Blood  might  still  have  been 
the  sacramental  fountain  of  eternal  life.  But  it 
would  not  have  had  the  office  of  ransoming  the 
wTorld  from  sin.  Sin  came;  and  by  its  coming  it 
did  to  the  Sacred  Humanity  of  the  Incarnate 
Word  what  it  also  did  to  the  uncreated  Majesty 
of  God.  It  deprived  it  of  its  kingdom.  It  laid 
wraste  its  empire.  It  miserably  uncrowned  it.  It 
left  him  only  the  unfallcn  tribes  of  angels  to  rule 
over.  It  threatened  to  frustrate  the  Incarnation, 
and  to  take  the  chiefest  jewel  out  of  his  Mother's 
diadem,  the  jewel  of  her  sinlessnoss.  As  sin  had 
dared  to  impede  divine  love  in  the  matter  of 
Creation,  so  did  it  dare  to  hinder  divine  love  in 
the  matter  of  the  Incarnation.      In  one  case  it 


THE    EMPIRE    OF   TIIE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.        109 

tried  to  infringe  the  eternal  dominion  of  God;  in 
the  other  case  it  strove  to  destroy  the  kingship  of 
his  created  nature.  As  with  Creation,  so  with  the 
Incarnation,  it  was  the  Precious  Blood  which 
saved  the  kingdom.  A  change,  as  we  are  obliged 
to  call  it,  came  over  its  destinies.  It  should  bo 
created  passible,  and  not  impassible.  It  should  be 
endowed  with  a  suffering  life.  It  should  flow  out 
of  a  suffering  Heart,  and  should  sustain  a  suffering 
Body.  It  sbould  be  selected  by  the  Holy  Trinity, 
for  reasons  inscrutable  to  us,  inscrutable  perhaps 
because  we  know  so  little  about  life,  to  be  tho 
solitary  ransom  for  sin.  If  we  knew  the  secret 
of  life,  we  might  perhaps  know  many  new  things 
about  the  Precious  Blood.  The  wisdom  of  God 
beheld  innumerable  fitnesses  in  this  nvysterious 
choice.  We  can  adore  them,  even  though  we  do 
not  know  them.  Thus  the  Precious  Blood  was  to 
conquer  back  his  kingdom  for  Jesus,  and  to  secure 
the  jewel  of  sinlessness  for  his  Mother's  diadem. 
Thus  Jesus  owed  to  his  Precious  Blood  his  kino 
dom  and  his  Mother.  Yet  this  Blood,  what  is  it 
but  the  own  life  of  Jesus  ?  Thus  was  sin  frus- 
trated without  the  creature's  liberty  being  forfeited. 
Thus  did  darkness  war  against  light \  and  what 
came  of  it  was,  that,  through  the  Precious  Blood, 
the  original  idea  of  Creation  was  even  beautified, 
without  any  change  in  the  Unchangeable.  These 
are  the  relations  of  the  Precious  Blood  to  Creation 
and  the  Incarnation.  These  are  its  titles  to 
royalty, — that  it  reinstated  the  dominion  of  God, 
and  that  it  restored  the  kingdom  of  Jesus. 

Let  us  pause  for  a  moment  to  make  an  act  of 

loving  reparation  to  the  immutability  of  God.    We 

10 


]10  THE    EMPIRE    OF   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

have  had  to  speak  of  him  with  the  infirmity  of 
human  words,  as  if  his  plans  had  failed,  or  his 
counsels  had  been  altered.  Bat  we  must  not  let 
any  such  idea  rest  on  our  minds.  How  it  is  that 
he  did  not  change  we  cannot  see:  hut  we  know 
that  he  did  not;  and  we  adore  his  blissful  immuta- 
bility. God  changes  his  works  without  changing 
his  counsels,  says  St.  Augustine.  But  the  change 
is  in  creatures,  not  in  him.  Time  cannot  change 
him,  because  he  is  eternal;  nor  place,  because  he 
is  immense.  He  cannot  change  within  himself, 
because  he  is  perfect.  lie  cannot  be  changed  by 
any  thing  outside  him,  because  he  is  almighty 
His  life  is  absolute  repose,  beatitude,  simplicity, 
and  in  all  this  there  can  be  no  change.  The  very 
necessity,  which  compels  us  to  speak  of  God  as  if 
he -changed,  only  brings  home  to  us  more  forcibly 
the  perfection  of  his  tranquillity.  Let  us  then 
boldly  offer  to  his  love  these  ignorant  words;  and, 
while  they  enable  us  to  understand  somewhat  of 
the  peculiar  office  and  grandeur  of  the  Precioiu 
Blood,  let  us  lovingly  adore  that  unchangcablenesb 
of  God,  which  has  lain  for  all  eternity  more  un- 
wrinkled  than  a  summer  sea,  and  will  lie  to  all 
eternity,  with  almost  infinite  worlds  round  about 
it,  and  yet  have  neither  cui-rcnt,  stream,  or  pulse, 
or  tide,  or  wave,  with  no  abyss  to  hold  it  and  with 
no  shore  to  bound  it,  with  no  shadow  from  with- 
out, and  no  throbbing  from  within. 

Now  that  we  have  endeavored  to  show  the 
place,  which  the  Precious  Blood  holds  in  the  coun- 
sels of  God,  with  reference  both  to  Creation  and 
the  Incarnation,  let  us,  before  Ave  advance  any 
further,  see  how  the  Holy  Scriptures  speak  of  it, 


THE    EMPIRE    OF   THE   PRECIOUS    BLOO.').        Ill 

and  how  completely  their  language  is  in  harmony 

with  our  theology.  We  will  content  ourselves 
with  putting  the  texts  together,  as  we  find  from 
experience  that  many  persons,  when  a  special 
devotion  to  the  Precious  Blood  is  urged  upon  them, 

were  not  at  all  aware  of  the  stress  which  the  in- 
spired writings  lay  upon  it,  hut  have  rather 
regarded  it  as  merely  a  convenient  figurative  ex- 
pression to  sum  up  and  represent  the  mysteries  of 
redemption. 

Then  Jesus  said  to  them:  Amen,  Amen,  I  say 
unto  you  :  Except  you  eat  the  Flesh  of  the  Son 
of  man,  and  drink  his  Blood,  }-ou  shall  not  have 
life  in  you.  He  that  eateth  my  Flesh,  and  drinketh 
my  Blood,  hath  everlasting  life:  and  I  will  raise 
him  up  in  the  last  day.  For  my  Flesh  is  meat 
indeed,  and  my  Blood  is  drink  indeed.  He  that 
eateth  my  Flesh,  and  drinketh  my  Blood,  ahideth 
in  me,  and  1  in  him.  In  him,  says  St.  Paul,  it 
hath  well  pleased  the  Father  that  all  fulness 
should  dwell,  and  through  him  to  reconcile  all 
things  unto  himself,  making  peace  through  the 
Blood  of  his  cross,  both  as  to  the  things  on  earth, 
and  the  things  that  are  in  heaven.  Christ,  bcimr 
come  an  high-priest  of  the  good  things  to  come, 
by  a  greater  and  more  perfect  tabernacle  not  made 
with  hand,  neither  by  the  blood  of  goats,  or  of 
calves,  but  by  his  own  Blood,  entered  once  into 
the  Holies,  having  obtained  eternal  redemption. 
For,  if  the  blood  of  goats  and  of  oxen,  and  the 
ashes  of  an  heifer  being  sprinkled,  sanctify  such 
as  are  defiled,  to  the  cleansing  of  the  flesh,  how 
much  more  shall  the  Blood  of  Christ,  who  by  the 
Holy  Ghost  offered  himself  unspotted  unto  God, 


112         THE    EMPIRE    OF   THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

cleanse  our  conscience  from  dead  works,  to  serve 
the  living  God  ?  Neither  was  the  first  testament 
dedicated  without  blood;  and  almost  all  things, 
according  to  the  law,  are  cleansed  with  Mood  ;  and 
without  shedding  of  blood  there  is  no  remission. 
It  is  necessary  therefore  that  the  patterns  of  hea- 
venly things  should  be  cleansed  with  these;  but 
the  heavenly  things  themselves  with  better  sacri- 
fices than  these.  We  have,  therefore,  brethren,  a 
confidence  in  the  entering  into  the  Holies  by  the 
Blood  of  Christ,  a  new  and  living  way  which  he 
hath  dedicated  for  us  through  the  veil,  that  is  to 
say,  his  Flesh.  We  are  come  to  the  sprinkling  of 
Blood,  which  speaketh  better  than  that  of  Abel. 
The  bodies  of  those  beasts,  whose  blood  is  brought 
into  the  Holies  by  the  high-priest  for  sin,  are 
burned  without  the  camp:  wherefore  Jesus  also, 
that  he  might  sanctify  the  people  by  his  own 
Blood,  suffered  without  the  gate.  St.  Peter  speaks 
of  us  as  elect,  according  to  the  foreknowledge  of 
God  the  Father,  unto  the  sanctification  of  the 
Spirit,  unto  obedience  and  sprinkling  of  the  Blood 
of  Jesus  Christ.  St.  John  says,  The  Blood  of 
Jesus  Christ  his  Son  cleanseth  us  from  all  sin. 
This  is  he  that  came  by  water  and  Blood:  not  by 
water  only,  but  by  water  and  Blood:  and  it  is  tho 
Spirit  which  testifieth,  that  Christ  is  the  truth; 
and  there  are  Three  who  give  testimony  in  heaven, 
the  Father,  the  Word,  and  the  Holy  Ghost;  and 
these  Three  are  One;  and  there  are  three  that 
give  testimony  on  earth,  the  spirit,  and  the  water, 
and  the  Blood ;  and  these  three  are  one.  Tho 
Ancients  in  the  Apocalypse  sung  a  new  canticle, 
Raying:    Thou  art   worthy,  O  Lord,  to  take   the 


THE    EMPIRE    OF   THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD.         113 

book,  and  io  open  the  seals  thereof:  because  thoi 
wast  slain,  and  hast  redeemed  us  to  God  in  th_) 
Blood,  out  of  every  tribe,  and  tongue,  and  people 
and  nation,  and  hast  made  us  to  our  God  a  kingdom 
and  priests,  and  we  shall  reign  on  the  earth.  Ana 
one  of  the  Ancients  answered  and  said  to  me: 
These  that  are  clothed  in  white  robes,  who  are 
they?  and  whence  came  they?  And  I  said  to  him, 
My  lord,  thou  knowest.  And  he  said  to  me,  These 
are  they  who  are  corne  out  of  great  tribulation, 
and  have  washed  their  robes  and  made  them  white 
in  the  Blood  of  the  Lamb.  Therefore  they  are 
before  the  throne  of  God;  and  the  Lamb,  which  is 
in  the  midst  of  the  throne,  shall  rule  them.  And 
I  heard  a  loud  voice  in  heaven,  saying:  Now  is 
come  salvation,  and  strength,  and  the  kingdom  of 
our  God,  and  the  power  of  his  Christ;  because  the 
accuser  of  our  brethren  is  cast  forth,  who  accused 
them  before  our  God  day  and  night;  and  they 
overcame  him  by  the  Blood  of  the  Lamb.  And  I 
saw  heaven  opened,  and  behold!  a  white  horse: 
and  he  that  sat  upon  him  was  called  Faithful  and 
True;  and  with  justice  doth  he  judge  and  tight; 
and  his  eyes  were  as  a  flame  of  tire,  and  on  his 
head  were  many  diadems;  and  he  had  a  name 
written,  which  no  man  knoweth  but  himself;  and 
he  was  clothed  with  a  garment  sprinkled  with 
Blood;  and  his  name  is  called  The  Word  of  God: 
and  the  armies  that  are  in  heaven  followed  him  on 
white  horses,  clothed  in  fine  linen  white  and  clean; 
and  he  shall  rule:  and  he  hath  on  his  garment  and 
on  his  thigh  written,  King  of  kings  and  Lord  of 
lords.  Again  St.  Paul  says,  The  chalice  of  benedic- 
tion, which  we  bless,  is  it  not  the  communion  of 
II  10* 


114         THE    EMPIRE    OF    THE    TRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

the  Blood  of  Christ?  Now  in  Christ  Jesus,  you, 
who  sometime  were  afar  off,  are  made  nigh  by  tlio 
Blood  of  Christ.  St.  Peter  says,  We  know  that 
we  were  redeemed  with  the  Precious  Blood  of 
Christ,  as  of  a  lamb  unspotted  and  undefiled,  fore- 
known indeed  before  the  foundation  of  the  world, 
but  manifested  in  the  last  times.  St.  Paul  also 
speaks  of  the  God  of  peace,  who  brought  again 
from  the  dead  the  great  pastor  of  the  sheep,  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  in  the  Blood  of  the  everlasting 
testament.  To  the  clergy  of  Ephesus  St.  Paul 
speaks  of  the  bishops  who  rule  the  church  of  God, 
which  he  hath  purchased  with  his  own  Blood.  To 
the  Romans  he  speaks  of  the  redemption  that  is  in 
Christ  Jesus,  whom  God  hath  proposed  to  be  a 
propitiation,  through  faith  in  his  Blood,  to  the 
showing  of  his  justice,  for  the  remission  of  former 
sins,  through  the  forbearance  of  God.  Christ  died 
for  us:  much  more  therefore,  being  now  justified  by 
his  Blood,  shall  we  be  saved  from  wrath  through 
him.  He  speaks  to  the  Ephesians  of  our  being 
predestinated  unto  the  praise  of  the  glory  of  God's 
grace,  in  which  he  hath  graced  us  in  his  beloved 
Son,  in  whom  we  have  redemption  through  his 
Blood,  the  remission  of  sins,  according  to  the 
riches  of  his  grace.  Similarly  to  the  Colossiana 
he  speaks  of  the  Father  having  delivered  us  from 
the  power  of  darkness,  and  translated  us  into  the 
kingdom  of  the  Son  of  his  love,  in  whom  we  have 
redemption  through  his  Blood,  .  .  .  that  in  all 
things  he  may  hold  the  primacy.  St.  John  in  the 
preface  of  the  Apocalj-pse  delivers  his  message  as 
from  Jesus  Christ,  who  is  the  faithful  witness,  the 
first -begotten  of  the  dead,  and  the  prince  of  tho 


THE    EMPIRE    OF   THE    TRECIOUS    BLOOD  115 

kings  of  the  earth,  who  hath  loved  us,  and  washed 
us  from  our  sins  in  his  own  Blood,  and  hath  made 
us  a  kingdom,  and  priests  to  God  and  his  Father, 
to  him  be  glory  and  empire  for  ever  and  ever! 
Amen.* 

He  who  desires  to  attain  to  a  deep  and  fervent 
devotion  to  the  Precious  Blood  cannot  do  so  more 
readily  than  by  taking  the  foregoing  texts  of 
the  Holy  Scriptures  for  the  subjects  of  his  medita- 
tions. They  will  carry  him,  and  very  gently,  far 
down  into  the  mind  of  God.  They  will  infuse 
into  him  a  more  tender  and  a  more  ardent  love 
of  the  Person  of  the  Eternal  Word,  while  they 
will  also  increase  his  reverence  for  the  Sacred 
Humanity.  They,  like  all  Scripture  words,  will 
bring  forth  fruit  a  thousandfold  in  his  heart. 
Meanwhile,  with  reference  to  our  present  train 
of  thought,  the  reader  will  observe  how  frequently 
and  in  what  a  striking  way  the  mention  of  tho 
Precious  Blood  is  coupled  by  the  Holy  Ghost  with 
the  idea  of  kingdom,  empire,  and  primacy,  how 
carefully  the  eternal  determination  and  fore- 
knowledge of  the  Precious  Blood  is  kept  in  sight, 
how  it  is  put  forward  as  the  making  of  an  offer- 
ing, the  restoring  of  his  creatures,  to  God,  and, 
finally,  how  it  is  to  St.  Peter,  our  Lord's  Vicar 
upon  earth,  that  we  owe  the  title  of  Precious  as 
applied   to    his    Master's    Blood.      I    cannot   but 


*  St.  John  vi.  54,  56.  Col.  i.  20.  Heb.  ii.  14;  ix.  7;  x. 
19;  xii.  24;  xiii.  11.  1  Pet.  i.  2.  Uohn  i.  7;  v.  6,  8. 
Apoc.  v.  9  ;  vii.  14;  xii.  11  ;  xix.  13.  1  Cor.  x.  16.  Eph. 
ii.  13.  1  Pet.  i.  19.  Heb.  xiii.  20.  Acts  xx.  28.  Rom.  iii 
26 ;  v.  9.     Eph.  i.  7.     Col.  i.  14.     Apoc.  i.  6. 


116         THE    EMPIRE   OF   TIIE   TRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

believe  that  many  men  will  feel  their  devotion 
to  the  Precious  Blood  increased  as  a  special  devo- 
tion when  they  see  the  wonderful  teaching  of  the 
Bible  on  the  subject  brought  into  one  view. 

There  are  of  course  many  ways  in  which  the 
Precious  Blood  establishes  the  empire  of  Jesus. 
We  may  illustrate  the  matter  sufficiently  for  our 
purpose  by  selecting  three  of  them,  Conversion, 
Sanctification,  and  the  Building  up  of  the  Church. 
We  shall  have  to  speak  more  at  length  of  Conver- 
sion in  the  next  chapter.  We  shall  treat  there- 
fore very  briefly  at  present  of  these  three  things, 
and  chiefly  from  one  point  of  view,  namely,  the 
contrast  and  comparison  between  them  and  the 
act  of  Creation. 

We  have  then  to  remember  that  it  is  the  office 
of  the  Precious  Blood  to  reconquer  for  God  an 
empire  which  sin  has  wrested  from  him,  and  to 
govern  and  administer  this  empire  in  proportion 
as  it  reconquers  it.  Its  roj'al  rights,  while  they 
are  the  gratuitous  appointments  of  God  and  flow 
from  his  eternal  choice,  are  also  based  on  the 
double  relation  of  the  Precious  Blood  to  Creation 
and  the  Incarnation.  Its  relation  to  Creation 
makes  it  the  rightful  representative  of  the  Domi- 
nion of  God.  Its  relation  to  the  Incarnation 
makes  it  the  natural  vicegerent  of  the  Kingdom 
of  the  Sacred  Humanity. 

To  us  fallen  creatures  Conversion  is  the  most 
interesting  divine  act  of  which  we  are  able  to 
take  intimate  cognizance.  It  is  an  act  going  on 
in  the  world  at  all  moments,  and  which  must 
happen  to  every  one  of  us,  either  in  the  waters 
of  baptism  or  out  of  them,  if  we  are  to  bo  saved. 


THE   EMPIRE    OF   TIIE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.         117 

Moreover,  it   is   an   act  which    may  be  repeated 
several  times  in  each  individual  soul.     Jt  is  to  our 
supernatural  being  what  Creation  is  to  our  natural 
being.     The  one  calls  us  out  of  nothingness  into 
life;    the  other  out  of  darkness   into  light.     The 
one  makes  us  citizens  of  earth  ;  the  other  citizens 
of  heaven.     By  the  one   we  are  entitled   to  pre- 
servation, and  all  the  numerous  means,  appliances, 
and    consequences  of   life;  by  the   other  we  have 
a  right  to  claim  sanctification,  and  all  the  nume- 
rous means,  appliances,  and  consequences  of  grace. 
The   creation  of  our  souls  was  the  work  of  an 
instant.     God  willed  the  existence  of  our  souls, 
and  exactly  of  such  souls  as  he  had  foreseen  and 
chosen  to  be  our  peculiar  selves  from  all  eternity. 
There  was  no  process,  lie  willed,  and  it  was  done. 
AVhere   there    had    been    nothingness,   there  was 
now  a  human  soul,  a  soul  beautiful   in   its  inde- 
structible simplicity,  beautiful  in   its  complicated 
life.     The  sum  of  existences  had  been  swelled  by 
one;  and  that  one  had  now  to  fulfil  a  strange, 
difficult,  varied,  romantic,  destiny  which  would  go 
on  to  be  eternal.     Conversion,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  a  process,  and  often  a  very  long  one.     Some- 
times whole  years  of  life  go  to  its  preparation. 
Ten  thousand  circumstances,  sweetly  constrained 
by  the  paternal  tenderness  of  God,  gi'adually  con- 
verge upon  some  predetermined  hour  and  minute. 
Misfortunes  are   sent  to  prepare  the  ground,   to 
plough  it  up  with  rude  troubles,  to  soften  it  with 
silent  weeping,  or  to  break  it  to  pieces  through 
the  kindly  action  of  the  frost.     Happiness  comes 
from  God  like  an   angel,  to  exorcise  evil  spirits 
from  the  mind,  the  temper,  or  the  heart,  and  to 


118         THE    EMPIRE    OF   THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

clear  the  way  for  more  supernatural  operations 
Accident,  or  seeming  accident,  also  has  its  func- 
tion in  this  work.  Chance  books,  chance  conver- 
sations, chance  meetings,  frequently  accelerate 
the  process,  and  not  seldom  hurry  it  at  once  to  its 
conclusion.  If  only  we  could  see  them,  we  should 
discover  that  the  graces  which  precede  conver- 
sion are,  for  number,  variety,  strangeness,  un- 
expectedness, and  kindliness,  among  the  most 
wonderful  works  of  God  and  the  most  touching 
ingenuities  of  his  love.  Yet,  while  the  process 
of  Conversion  contrasts  with  Creation  in  that  it  is 
a  process  at  all,  it  also  resembles  it  in  being  really 
instantaneous.  The  actual  justification  of  a  sinner 
is  the  work  of  an  instant.  We  see  this  in  the 
baptism  of  infants.  But  also  in  grown-up  people 
the  transition  from  the  enmity  of  God  to  his 
friendship,  from  a  state  of  sin  to  a  state  of  grace, 
takes  place  in  a  moment.  One  moment,  and 
if  the  soul  left  the  body  it  must  perish  eternally  j 
another  moment,  and  if  sudden  death  came  salva- 
tion would  be  secure.  The  change  from  the  form- 
less abyss  of  nothingness  to  the  fresh,  complete 
soul,  is  not  more  instantaneous  than  the  justifica- 
tion of  a  sinner.  What  has  gone  before  has  been 
merely  preparatory.  It  might  weigh  in  judgment 
as  ground  for  abating  the  severity  of  punishment; 
but  it  could  not  avail  to  alter  that  state  of  the 
soul  which  death  has  rendered  fixed,  certain,  and 
irrevocable. 

God  condescends  to  put  himself  before  us  as 
effecting  Creation  by  a  word.  lie  spoke,  and  it. 
was  done.  Let  light  be,  and  light  was.  Thus 
Creation   is   effected    by   the    most   simple  of  all 


THE    EMPIRE    OF    THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.  119 

agencies,  namely,  by  a  single  means,  and  that 
means,  not  a  work,  but  a  mere  -word.  Tbe  Pre- 
cious Blood,  on  the  other  hand,  effects  its  crea- 
tions in  Conversion  by  a  multiplicity  of  means, 
of  means  which  are  often  repeated,  often  varied, 
often  intensified,  often  newly  invented  for  fresh 
case3,  and  often  quite  peculiar  to  the  individual 
ease.  There  is  nothing  in  the  world  which  the 
Precious  Blood  cannot  make  a  means  of  grace. 
Even  sin,  though  it  cannot  be  a  means  of  grace, 
can  be  constrained  to  do  the  ministries  of  grace, 
just  as  Satan  is  made  the  reluctant  bondsman 
of  the  elect,  and  is  forced  to  jewel  their  crowns 
with  the  very  temptations  he  has  devised  for  their 
destruction.  Nevertheless  in  this  respect  also 
Conversion  is  like  Creation.  It  is  like  it  in  its 
choice  of  means,  though  not  like  it  in  its  sim- 
plicity. For  the  Precious  Blood  also  chooses 
words  for  its  instruments,  as  if  in  honor  of  that 
Eternal  Word  whose  human  life  it  is.  The  Sacra- 
ments are  its  ordinary  modes  of  action,  as  we 
shall  see  later  on ;  and  words  are  the  forms  of 
the  Sacraments,  without  which  their  peculiar 
miracles  of  grace  cannot  be  wrought.  Divine 
w^ords  are  the  chosen  instruments  of  production 
in  the  supernatural  as  well  as  in  the  natural 
world. 

It  is  one  of  the  glories  of  the  act  of  Creation, 
that  there  is  no  semblance  of  effort  about  it.  It 
is  the  free  act  of  God,  but  it  is  hardly  an  act  in 
the  sense  in  which  we  commonly  use  the  word. 
It  is  an  act  in  a  much  higher  sense,  a  simpler 
and  yet*  a  more  efficacious  sense.  It  is  an  act 
without  effort,   without  succession,   without  pro- 


120         THE    EMPIRE    OF   THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

cesses.  It  is  an  act  such  as  befits  the  perfections 
of  the  Most  High.  His  power  did  not  rise  up,  as 
it  were,  to  do  it,  nor  his  wisdom  deliberate  about 
it,  nor  bis  love  grow  to  it.  Nothing  went  out 
of  him  to  the  act,  nor  was  the  tranquillity  of  his 
life  quickened  by  it.  Conversion,  on  the  contrary, 
has  all  the  look  of  effort  about  it.  Nay,  effort 
is  not  the  word :  I  should  rather  have  said  agony. 
The  Precious  Blood  working  its  way  out  of  our 
Blessed  Lord's  Body  in  the  sweat  of  Gethsemane, 
the  slow,  painful  oozings  from  the  Crown  of 
thorns,  the  rude  violence  of  the  sprinkling  at  the 
Scourging,  the  distillation  of  the  Blood  along  the 
streets  of  Jerusalem  and  up  the  slope  of  Calvary, 
the  soaking  of  his  clinging  raiment,  the  four  wells 
dug  by  the  cruel  nails  ebbing  and  flowing  with  the 
pulses  of  his  feeble  life,  the  violation  of  the  silent 
sanctuary  of  his  Dead  Heart,  to  seek  for  the  few 
drops  of  that  precious  treasure  that  might  be  left, 
— all  these  are  parts  of  the  effort  of  Conversion. 
Neither  is  there  less  look  of  effort  in  the  Conver- 
sion of  each  single  soul  :  more  with  some,  and 
less  with  others.  In  most  instances  the  Precious 
Blood  seems  to  return  to  the  charge  again  and 
again.  Here  it  fails,  there  it  succeeds.  Now  its 
success  is  hardly  perceptible,  now  it  is  manifest, 
striking,  and  decisive.  The  Precious  Blood  tries 
to  convert  every  one,  just  as  it  was  shed  for  every 
one.  Multitudes  remain  unconverted,  and  are 
never  won  back  to  the  kingdom  of  God.  With 
them  the  battle  has  gone  against  grace.  Even  in 
defeat  the  Precious  Blood  triumphs.  It  gains 
glory  for  God ;  but  it  is  in  ways  which  ii>  this  life 
we  cannot  even  put  ourselves  into  a  position  to 


THE    EMPIRE    OF   THE    TRECIOUS    BLOOD.         121 

understand.  It  can  boast  also  of  decisive  victo- 
ries, of  great  strokes  of  grace,  of  hearts  carried 
by  storm,  of  saints  made  at  once  out  of  one  heroic 
deed.  13ut  these  are  not  the  common  cases.  "With 
most  hearts  it  strives,  and  pleads,  and  toils;  then 
it  seems  to  intermit  its  labors,  as  if  it  were 
fatigued  ;  it  retires  from  the  heart  as  if  in  despair 
Once  more  it  returns  to  its  task,  and  occupies 
itself  with  incredible  patience  in  minutest  details, 
often  working  under  ground  and  in  circuitous 
ways.  Not  seldom  it  retires  again,  as  if  now 
completely  baffled;  and  finally,  when  least  ex- 
pected, it  leaps  upon  its  prey  from  afar,  and 
triumphs  as  much  by  the  suddenness,  as  by  the 
impetuosity,  of  the  onslaught. 

Look  at  that  soul,  almost  the  richest  booty  it 
ever  won  in  war,  the  soul  of  St.  Paul.  What  long 
years  there  were  of  religious  antecedents,  what  a 
blind  generosity  of  misdirected  zeal,  what  a  fidelity 
to  unhelpful  ordinances,  what  a  preparation  for 
humility  in  the  cruel  persecution  of  the  faithful, 
what  a  prelude  to  apostolic  fervor  in  that  furious 
partisanship  of  the  conscientious  pharisee,  what 
an  insensible  drawing  nigh  to  the  Gospel  through 
the  very  perfection  of  his  Judaism!  Then  follow 
St.  Stephen's  prayers,  and  things  are  coming  to 
the  best  with  Saul  when  they  are  at  their  very 
worst.  Yet  Stephen's  prayers  are  not  so  much 
attacking  him  as  circumventing  him.  Then  the 
heavens  open  at  noonday,  and  the  glorified  Ee- 
deemer  overwhelms  him  with  sudden  light,  and 
blinds  him,  and  flings  him  to  the  ground;  and  the 
blood  of  Stephen,  which  had  cried  aloud  to  the 
Blood  of  Jesus,  is  sweetly  avenged  by  the  heart  of 

11 


122         THE    EMriRE    OF    THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

Paul  being  cleansed  by  that  atoning  Blood,  and  sent 
out  unto  all  nations  to  be  the  especial  preacher  of 
that  Blood  which  had  so  glorified  itself  in  his  Con- 
version.    Yet,  while  there  is  such  a  seeming  con- 
trast between    Creation    and    Conversion    in    this 
matter  of  effort,  there  is  also  a  close  comparison 
between  them.     There  is  in  reality  no  effort  in  the 
operation  of  the  Precious  Blood.     It  only  needed 
to  let  itself  be  shed.     It  only  needs  now  to  let 
itself  be  outpoured.     Its  touch  is  health,  life,  resur- 
rection, immortality,  and  glory.     Its  sole  touch  is 
its  sole  work.     It  never  touches  but  it  changes. 
It  needs  but  to  touch   once  in  order  to  make  its 
spiritual  change  complete.    If  it  seems  to  add,  to  re- 
peat, to  re-touch,  to  deepen,  to  broaden,  to  improve 
on  itself,  all  that  comes  from  another  part  of  its  cha- 
racter.    It  is  no  sign  of  want  of  power,  no  necessary 
expenditure  of  artistic  labor,  no  demand  of  expe- 
rience, no  consequence  of  more  mature  reflection. 
The  absence  of  contrivance  is  another  splendor 
of  the  divine  act  of  Creation.     No  plan  was  laid. 
No  gradual  train  of  thought  reached  the  grand 
conclusion.     No  provisions  were  made,  no  prepa- 
rations  finished,  no   materials    collected.     There 
were  no  preliminaries.     There  was  no  change  in 
the  Ever-blessed  Agent.     Without  any  prelude,  and 
yet  with  a  tranquillity  which  admitted  not  of  sud- 
denness, God  created.     There  was  no  model   for 
him  to  go  by.     There  was   no   law  to   constrain 
nim.     lie  had  never  done  a  free  act  before.     This 
was   his    first.     Yet   it  affected    not    his    immuta- 
bility.     From  all  eternity  the  Son  was  being  born 
of  the    Father;  from  all   eternity  the  Holy  Ghost 
was  proceeding  from  the  Father  and  the  Son.    But 


THE    EMPIRE    OF    THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.  123 

these  were  necessary  actions.     They  were  the  in- 
ward life  of  God.     Creation  was  a  free  act,  an  act 
which  he  was  free  to  do,  or  to  leave   undone,  with 
out  altering  his  perfections,    He  acted.   He  created. 
The  consequences  are  stupendous.     They  are  end- 
less.    They  are  beyond   the  comprehension  of  the 
highest  angels.     With  all  these  consequences  God 
himself  is  most   mysteriously  mixed  up.     There  is 
his  concurrence  with  all  created  actions  and  move- 
ments, the  intricacies  of  his  never-halting  provi- 
dence, thf  Incarnation,  the  Divine  Mother,  the  Fall, 
the  Precious  Blood,  the  Church,  the  Sacraments, 
the  Economy  of  grace,  the  Doom,  the  Wail  of  hell, 
the  Jubilee  of  heaven.     Yet  he  acted  out  of  his  ado- 
rable simplicity.     He  put  himself  in  no  attitude  to 
create.     He    made   no    movement.     He  contrived 
nothing.     He  spoke,  but  his  utterance  broke  not 
the  everlasting  silence;  and  at  his  voiceless  word 
all  was  done.     There  is  no  calm  in  the  universe 
like   the  calmness  of  the  act  by  which  the  whole 
universe  was  created.     There  was  not  a  stir  in  the 
life  of  God  when  a  million  times  ten  million  anirels 
sprang    into    beautiful    existence,   and    a   million 
times  ten  million  material  worlds  leaped  up  like 
tires  out  of  a  void  abyss,  where  a  moment  before 
neither  abyss  nor  void  had  been.     Thus  there  was 
no  history  in  the  act  of  Creation,  whereas  in  each 
Conversion  there  is  a  marvellous,  orderly,  yet  en- 
tangled history.     There  is  a  look  of  contrivance 
about  the  Precious  Blood.     It  was  to  be  got  from 
Mary's  heart.     Her  heart  was  to  be  hindered,  by  a 
strange  miracle  of  anticipation,  through  the  very 
virtue  of  the  unformed  Precious  Blood  itself,  from 
coming  under  the  law  of  sin.     It  had  to  pass  into 


12-4         THE   EMPIRE    OF   THE    PRECIOUS   RLOOD. 

the  life  of  Jesus,  and  to  multiply  in  his  veins  to  tho 
full  supply  of  manhood.  The  methods  by  which 
it  was  to  be  shed  were  all  to  be  contrived,  with 
times,  places,  quantities,  and  circumstances  befitting 

them.  It  had  to  be  looked  after  during  the  triduo 
of  the  Passion,  and  its  restoration  to  the  Body  of 
our  dearest  Lord  contrived.  After  all  this,  further 
contrivance  was  needed  concerning  the  methods 
of  applying  it  to  the  souls  of  men.  Its  impetu- 
osity had  to  be  in  order.  Its  prodigality  had  to 
submit  to  law.  What  an  immensit}T  of  divine  con- 
trivance went  to  all  this  machinery!  Yet  in  itself 
the  Precious  Blood  operates  with  as  little  contri- 
vance as  effort.  In  the  matter  of  contrivance,  as 
in  the  matter  of  effort,  Conversion  emulates  the 
simplicity  of  Creation.  The  brief  word  of  a  Sacra- 
ment is  enough  to  work  its  huge  miracle  upon  the 
unresisting  soul  of  the  infant  at  the  Font.  Nay, 
with  the  most  obdurate  sinner  it  can  by  its  first 
grace  accomplish  the  entire  work  of  sanctity,  and 
raise  him  into  a  saint  at  once  without  any  of  the 
sweet  insidious  contrivances  with  which  the  gentle- 
ness of  redeeming  love  so  often  surrounds  the  ope- 
ration of  the  Precious  Blood.  Conversion  can  be 
masterful  as  well  as  tender. 

lie  that  is  eternal  grows  not  weary.  Eternity 
itself  is  endless,  unbeginning  rest.  Eternity  before 
Creation  is  but  the  name  of  the  life  of  God.  But 
the  Eternal  rested  after  Creation.  He  had  an 
unimaginable  sabbath,  in  which  he  rested  from 
the  works  that  he  had  made.  There  is  no  sabbath 
yet  for  the  Precious  Blood.  Its  creative  work 
upon  the  earth  is  incessant,  increasing  as  the  mul- 
titudes of  the  tribes  of  men  increase.     There  is  no 


THE    EMPIRE    OF   THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD.  125 

end  to  its  activity,  day  and  night.     It  starts  each 
epoch  and  each  century  with  renewed  ardor  and 
redoubled  vigor.     It  becomes  more  abundant  and 
more  energetic  in  the  Church  on  earth,  in  propor- 
tion   as    the    Church    becomes    more    populous   in 
heaven.      Yet  it  has  a  sabbath  too,  even  while  it 
toils.     It  rests  in   the  glorified  Heart  of  Jesus  in 
heaven.      It   rests    upon    that    mediatorial   throne 
whereon  the  Sacred  Humanity  has  been   exalted. 
The  souls  of  the  righteous  worship  it  on  high  with 
everlasting   lauds;    and    the   angels,  prostrate   in 
adoration,  sing  canticles  in  its  honor  all  throuirh 
the  nightless  day  of  that  radiant  land  above.     It 
rests  in  Jesus.     It  is  his  life,  his  love,  his  jubilee, 
and  his  repose.     This  is  its  sabbath-life  in  heaven, 
while  its  industry  is  so  divinely  vigorous  and  fer- 
tile upon  earth.     But  the  sabbath  of  Creation  is 
also  a  time  of  working,  while  it  is  a  time  of  rest. 
JSTot   only   is   the   continuous   preservation    of  all 
things  and  the  fulfilling  of  all  created  things  with 
the  divine  concurrence  an  almost  illimitable  exten 
sion  and  on-going  of  creation,  but  new  souls  of  men 
are  literally  created  out  of  nothing  every  moment 
of  time.     Yret  still,  in  some  mysterious  sense,  God's 
sabbath  is  unbroken.     Thus  Conversion,  like  Crea- 
tion, has  its  sabbath,  even  while  it  works.     When 
the  Grand  Doom  has  come  and  gone,  who  can  tell 
into  what  a  sabbath  the  rest  of  our  dearest  Lord 
shall  deepen  ? 

If  Conversion  is  the  conquest  of  the  empire  of 
the  Precious  Blood,  Sanctification  is  its  govern- 
ment of  that  which  it  has  conquered.  Sanctifica- 
ti  >n  is  to  Conversion  what  Cosmogony  is  to 
Creation.     It  is  the  dividing  up,  and  dispensing 

11* 


126         THE    EMPIRE   OF   "MIE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

and  setting  in  order,  and  adorning,  what  has 
already  been  created  out  of  nothing.  Or,  again, 
it  is  to  the  work  of  justification  what,  in  natural 
things,  the  preservation  of  life  is  to  the  evolving 
of  life  out  of  nothing.  It  was  the  Holy  Ghost 
who  fashioned  the  Precious  Blood  out  of  the  im- 
maculate blood  of  Mary.  He  was  the  Fashioner 
of  the  Sacred  Humanity.  To  him  that  work  is 
specially  appropriated.  He  also  is  especially,  and 
by  appropriate  office,  our  Sanctifier.  It  Avas  to 
him  that  Jesus  left  his  Church.  What  our  Lord 
himself  had  been  during  the  Three-and-Thirty 
Years,  the  Holy  Ghost  began  to  be  in  some  pecu- 
liar manner  from  the  day  of  Pentecost.  Jesus 
himself  has  returned  to  abide  in  his  Church  in  the 
Plessed  Sacrament;  but  he  abides  in  it  as  it  were 
beneath  the  administration  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
which  he  himself  appointed.  The  Precious  Blood, 
which  the  Holy  Spirit  fashioned,  is  now  the  same 
Spirit's  instrument  in  the  great  work  of  sanctifica- 
tion.  As  that  Blood  was  the  love  of  the  Son's 
Sacred  Humanity,  by  which  he  offered  his  atone- 
ment to  the  Father,  so  is  it  the  love  of  his  Sacred 
Humanity,  by  which  with  sweetest  affectionate 
ministries  he  subserves  the  sanctif}-ing  office  of  the 
Holy  Ghost.  By  the  Precious  Blood  the  Son  him- 
self became  Redeemer,  while  by  the  same  dear 
Blood  reparation  was  made  to  the  Father's  honor 
as  Creator,  and  to  the  Holy  Spirit's  tender  love  as 
the  Sanctifier  of  creation.  He  who  in  the  Holy 
Trinity  was  produced  and  not  producing  became 
fertile  by  the  Precious  Blood. 

Was  there  ever  any  such  fertility  as  that  of  the 
Holy  Ghost?     The  leaves  of  the  trees,  the  blades 


HIE   EMriRE    OF   THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.        127 

of  the  grass,  the  mat  tod  entanglement  of  tropical 
herbs  in  the  moist  forest,  the  countless  shoals  of 
the  living  inhabitants  of  ocean,  the  swarms  of  in- 
sects which  in  hot  regions  blacken  the  sun  for 
miles  as  if  they  were  sand-storms, — these  are  but 
types  of  the  fecundity  of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  the 
operations  of  grace.  We  never  can  do  justice  to 
the  magnitude  of  the  world  of  angels.  The  poor 
child,  who  has  no  notion  of  money  but  in  pence, 
would  be  bewildered  if  he  were  called  upon  to  deal 
with  gold  and  to  count  his  gold  by  millions.  So 
we  in  earthly  things  are  accustomed  to  dimensions, 
and  to  numbers,  on  so  dwarfish  a  scale,  that  even 
our  exai>'irerations  will  not  raise  our  ideas  to  the 
true  magnitudes  and  multitudes  of  the  world  of 
angels.  The  countless  myriads  of  individual  spirits, 
the  countless  graces  which  are  strewn  all  over  the 
breadth  of  their  capacious  natures,  the  colossal 
size  of  those  graces  as  compared  with  those  of 
human  souls,  the  inconceivable  rapidity,  delicacy, 
and  subtlety  of  the  operations  of  grace  in  such 
gigantic  intelligences  and  such  fiery  affections, — 
these  considerations,  if  well  weighed,  may  give  us 
some  idea  of  the  fruitfulness  of  the  most  dear 
sanctifying  Spirit.  Every  one  of  those  graces  was 
merited  for  the  angels  by  the  Precious  Blood. 
Converting  grace  they  never  had;  for  they  never 
needed  a  conversion;  and  to  those  who  fell  no 
conversion  was  allowed.  If  we  think  also  of  the 
multitude  of  souls,  the  sum  of  successive  genera- 
tions from  Adam  to  the  uncertain  Doom,  if  we  try 
to  bring  before  ourselves  the  variety  of  vocations 
in  the  world,  the  strictly  peculiar  needs  of  each 
gingle  soul  and  the  distinctive  characteristic  shape 


128        THE   EMPIRE   OF   TIIE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

of  the  holiness  of  each  single  soul,  then  the  multi- 
plicity of  the  processes  of  grace  prolonged  perhaps 
over  half  a  century  or  more,  we  shall  see  that  the 
arithmetic    of    even    human    graces    is    amazing. 
Through  the  instrumentality  of  the  Precious  Blood, 
the  Holy  Ghost  is  everywhere  and  always  making 
all  things  productive  of  sanctity  in  some  measure 
and  degree.  .  Sanctification  may  he  called  the  pro- 
duction of   heavenly  beauty  in  the  world.     It  js_ 
the  filling  of  nature  with  the  supernatural.     It  is 
the  transforming  of  the  human  or  angelic  into  the 
divine.     It  is  the  engraving  of  the  image  of  God 
"upon  every  piece  and  parcel  of  the  rational  crea- 
tion.    It  is  the  brightening  and  the  beautifying  of 
creation.     It  is  the  empire  of  light  stealing  upon 
the  realm  of  darkness,  swiftly,  slowly,  variously, 
with   beams   and  splendors,  with   transformations 
and   effects,   more  marvellous  than   those  of  any 
lovely  dawn  upon  the   mountains   and   forests  of 
tb"  earth.    It  is  the  especial  and  appropriate  office 
of  the  Holy  Ghost,  with  the  universal  and  inva- 
riable and  inseparable  agency  of  the  Precious  Blood. 
Thus,  every  process  of  Sanctification,  while  it  is  an 
outpouring  of  exquisite  love  upon  creatures,  is  also 
a  passage  of  mutual  love  between  Jesus  and  the 
Holy  Ghost.     Our  Lord's  words  in  the  Gosper  in- 
dicate to  us  something  of  the  unspeakable  jealoun 
love  of  the  Sacred  Humanity  for  the  Eternal  Spirit 
Our  dearest  Savior,  whose  very  office  and  occupa- 
tion it  was  to  forgive  sin,  was  unlike  himself  when 
he  excepted  from  this  amnesty  the  sin  against  the 
Holy  Ghost :  unlike  himself,  yet  true  to  some  depth 
of  holiness  and  love  within  himself.    On  the  other 
hand,  it  was  to  be  the  office  of  the  Paraclete  to 


I 


THE    EMPIRE    OF    THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD.        129 

bring  Jesus  to  mini,  to  fill  the  memory  with  tho 
sweet  words  he  had  said,  to  keep  the  Thirty-Three 
Years  alive  on  earth  forever,  to  be  forever  testify-  . 
ing  of  Jesus,  and  forever  completing  and  adoring 
the  work  which  he  had  come  on  earth  to  do.  Thus, 
as  in  theology  the  Holy  Ghost  is  named  the  Kiss 
of  the  Father  and  the  Son,  the  Son  and  the  Holy 
Ghost  kiss  Each  Other  in  the  Precious  Blood.  All 
Sanctifieation  is  the  love  of  the  Holy  Ghost  for 
the  Sacred  Humanity;  and  every  operation  of 
the  Precious  Blood  is  a  tender  adoration  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  by  the  Created  Nature  of  our  blessed 
Lord. 

But  we  should  soon  sink  out  of  our  depths  in 
mysteries  like  these.  We  will  pass  on  to  the  third 
of  the  principal  ways  in  which  the  Precious  Blood 
reconquers  for  God  the  empire  of  his  own  creation, 
and  establishes  the  kingdom  of*  Christ, — the  Build- 
ing up  of  the  Church.  To  continue  our  comparison 
with  Creation, — as  Conversion  represents  the  act 
of  Creation,  and  Sanctifieation  the  work  of  Cos- 
mogony, so  the  Building  up  of  the  Church  is 
parallel  to  those  changes  in  the  face  of  Creation 
made  by  the  lapse  of  time  and  the  agency  of  tho 
natural  laws  of  the  universe.  The  alterations  of 
the  bed  of  ocean,  the  deposits  of  mighty  rivers, 
the  crumbling  of  the  rocks,  the  devastations  of  the 
earthquake  and  volcano,  the  elevation  and  sub- 
sidence of  the  earth,  the  spreading  of  the  sandy 
deserts,  the  mutations  of  climate  from  other  and 
less  normal  catastrophes, — all  these  things  have 
altered  the  face  of  the  earth,  made  it  more  habit- 
able, and  by  deciding  its  physical  geography  have 
gone  far  to  decide  its  history  ar.  d  to  locate  the 
I 


130         THE    EMPIRE   OF   THE   PRECIOLS   BLOOD. 

centres  of  its  civilization.  So  is  it  with  the  spi- 
ritual earth  through  the  vicissitudes  of  the  Church. 
The  Church  is  the  work  of  the  Precious  Blood.  It 
■was  made  by  it,  cleansed  by  it,  adorned  by  it,  pro- 
pagated by  it,  and  kept  glorious  by  it.  The  Church 
is  that  portion  of  creation  purchased  by  the  Pre- 
cious Blood  out  of  alien  possession,  recovered  from 
unjust  holding,  redeemed  from  slavery,  conquered 
from  enemies.  The  salvation  of  individual  souls 
is  dependent  upon  the  Church.  Hence  the  Building- 
up  of  the  Church  is  one  of  the  grandest  works  of 
the  Precious  Blood.  The  conversion  of  nations, 
the  history  of  doctrine,  the  holding  of  councils,  the 
spread  of  the  episcopate,  the  influence  of  the 
ecclesiastical  upon  the  civil  law,  the  freedom  of 
the  Holy  See,  the  papal  monarchy  of  past  ages, 
the  concordats  of  the  present  day,  the  filial  sub- 
ordination of  catholic  governments,  —  all  these 
things  alter  the  face  of  the  spiritual  world.  Every 
one  of  them  is  a  vast  fountain  of  God's  glory,  an 
immense  harvest  of  souls,  a  prolific  source  of 
human  happiness,  and  the  antidote  to  a  thousand 
evils.  Above  all  things,  the  honor,  the  freedom, 
and  the  empire  of  the  Holy  See  are  the  works  of 
the  Precious  Blood.  The  Church  is  the  Body  of 
Christ;  and  nowhere  are  the  lineaments  of  our 
dearest  Lord,  his  beauty,  his  persuasiveness,  his 
strange  commingling  of  gladness  ami  of  woe,  so 
faithfully  expressed  as  in  the  Head  of  his  Church. 
Hence  it  is  that  the  joyousness  of  the  saints  ebbs 
and  flows  with  the  vicissitudes  of  the  Holy  See. 
Hence  it  is  that  the  most  secret  mystics  are 
affected  by  the  fortunes  of  distant  Rome,  like  the 
wells  that  dry  and  fill  again  in  hidden  sympathy 


THE    EMPIRE    OF   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD.        131 

with  an  earthquake  in  some  remote  quarter  of  the 
world. 

in  quiet  times  good  men  can  love  the  Vicar  of 
Christ,  and  look  at  him  as  their  venerable  father 
and  monarch,  ruling  over  all  the  host  affections  of 
their  hearts,  with  a  loyalty  which  the  hereditary 
sovereigns  of  the  earth  can  never  obtain,  and 
which  is  a  far  more  heavenly  thing  than  a  patriot's 
love  of  the  land  which  gave  him  birth.  But  when 
the  clouds  gather  round  the  Sacred  City,  when  the 
pressure  of  self-seeking  potentates  again  begins  to 
crucify  our  Lord  afresh  in  the  person  of  his  Vicar, 
when  the  coils  of  diplomacy  twist  themselves 
round  Peter's  throne,  when  wellnigh  all  the  world, 
schism,  heresy,  unbelief,  ambition,  injustice,  and 
catholic  states  world-tainted,  league  together 
against  the  Lord's  Anointed,  then  to  the  saints 
the  face  of  Christ's  Vicar  becomes  like  the  counte- 
nance of  his  Lord.  It  grows  more  majestic  in 
abjection.  The  anguish  on  it  is  divine.  It  is  more 
worshipful  than  ever,  at  the  very  moment  when 
it  is  calling  out  our  tenderest  love  and  our  keenest 
sympathies.  This  too  is  a  time  rife  in  victories  to 
the  Precious  Blood.  Pome  is  saved,  and  man  has 
not  saved  it.  They  were  bearing  the  papacy  out 
to  burial,  and  lo!  a  glorious  resurrection!  AVhen 
deliverance  was  furthest  off,  then  it  came. 

But  these  great  historical  triumphs  are  not  the 
only  victories  of  the  Precious  Blood  in  evil  daye. 
It  wins  many  in  the  secrets  of  hearts.  The  spirit 
of  the  age  is  forever  tainting  the  minds  and  hearts 
of  the  elect.  There  are  few  who  do  not  end  by 
going  with  the  multitude,  few  who  are  not  imposed 
upon   by  the  pompous  elation  of  science,  by  the 


132         THE    EMPIRE    OF   TIIE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

juvenile  pro r.om cements  of  an  improved  litera- 
ture, by  the  complacent  self-glorifications  of  tem- 
poral prosperity,  and  by  the  pretensions  to  an 
unparalleled  grandeur  which  each  generation 
makes  as  it  struts  out  upon  the  stage  of  life.  It  is 
fine  to  innovate:  it  is  refreshing  to  be  audacious: 
it  is  a  cheap  victory  to  attack:  it  is  comfortable 
to  be  on  the  same  side  with  the  loud-voiced  world 
around  us.  Few  men  have  clearl}-  ascertained 
their  own  principles.  They  admit  into  their  in- 
consequent minds  wandering  ideas  of  the  times, 
without  seeing  that  they  are  in  realit}r  hostile  to 
the  holy  things  which  occupy  the  sanctuary  of 
their  hearts.  Hence  they  get  upon  the  wrong 
side,  specially  in  middle  life.  It  is  not  j-outh  so 
much  as  middle  life  that  falls  in  this  way.  While 
the  generosity  of  j'outh  makes  early  life  to  err  in 
questions  of  degree,  the  same  generosity  keeps  it 
incorrupt  in  questions  of  kind.  It  is  the  egotistical 
self-importance  of  middle  life,  which  makes  apos- 
tates, reformers,  and  malcontents.  It  is  then  that 
men  get  upon  the  wrong  side.  They  fight  under 
wrong  banners.  They  frustrate  the  promise  of 
their  better  years.  The}T  become  out  of  harmony 
with  the  Church.  From  that  hour  their  lives  are 
failures.  They  grow  querulous  and  contentious, 
peevish  and  captious,  bitter  and  sour.  Their  old 
age  is  extremely  solitary;  and  it  is  a  great  grace 
of  God  if  they  do  not  die  on  the  wrong  side,  they 
who  seem  to  have  been  raised  up  to  be  the  very 
foremost  champions  of  the  right.  Now  it  is  bad 
times  which  open  men's  eyes.  They  see  then  how 
the  spirit  of  the  age  has  been  nigh  to  deceiving 
them,  how  they  mistook  its  loudness  for  wisdom, 


THE   EMPIRE    OF   THE   TRECIOUS   BLOOD.       133 

and  how  near  they  were  to  losing  the  simplicity 
of  their  devotion  in  the  unhelpfulncss  of  an  intel- 
lectual demonstration,  which  has  passed  away,  and 
has  done  as  little,  and  is  remembered  as  much,  as 
the  popular  novel  of  a  season.  Many  are  the  vic- 
tories of  disenchantment  which  the  Precious  Blood 
gains  in  times  like  those.  Souls,  that  arc  Avon 
back  to  the  old  ways  and  the  antique  fashions, 
may  yet  be  saints,  whose  promises  of  holiness 
must  soon  have  been  withered,  cankered,  or  dis- 
persed in  the  vanity  of  modern  attempts  and 
innovations. 

Nay,  though  we  may  be  unable  to  see  it,  wo 
cannot  doubt  that  there  are  triumphs  of  the  Pre- 
cious Blood  in  the  spread  of  heresies,  in  the  schism 
of  kingdoms,  and  in  similar  catastrophes  of  the 
Church.  Souls  seem  to  perish,  and  it  is  hard  to 
bear.  But  the  life  of  the  Church  is  very  vast,  and 
is  ruled  by  immense  laws;  and  when  her  Spouse 
"jomes  at  the  end,  the  Precious  Blood  must  needs 
present  her  to  him  "a  glorious  Church,  not  having 
spot,  or  wrinkle,  or  any  such  thing."*  We  must 
remember  always,  therefore,  that  the  Church  is 
the  empire  of  the  Precious  Blood,  and  that  that 
Blood  will  be  the  law  of  its  life,  and  will  govern 
it,  not  at  all  in  the  world's  way ,  not  at  all  in  the 
spirit  of  an  age,  but  altogether  after  its  own  spirit 
and  altogether  in  its  own  way.  Souls  soon  lose 
themselves  who  chafe  because  the  Church  is  not 
wise  with  a  worldly  wisdom. 

But  we  should  have  a  very  imperfect  notion 
of  the  empire  of  the  Precious  Blood  if  we  did  not 

*  Eph.  v.  27. 
12 


134         THE    EMPIRE    OF   THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

take  into  account  the  chief  methods  by  which  it 
does  its  work.  We  have  seen  some  of*  the  prin- 
cipal ways  in  -which  it  spreads  its  empire;  let  ua 
now  see  the  means  by  which  it  spreads  it.  These 
means  are  the  Sacraments. 

It  is  difficult  to  describe  the  Sacraments.  If  an 
angel  were  to  bear  us  from  this  globe  which  we 
inhabit,  and  carry  us  to  some  distant  star,  which 
God  may  have  adorned  as  a  dwelling-place  for 
some  other  species  of  reasonable  creatures,  Ave 
should  be  struck  with  the  novelty  and  peculiarity 
of  the  scenery  around  us.  Some  of  its  features 
might  remind  us  of  the  scenery  of  earth,  although 
with  characteristic  differences;  while  other  fea- 
tures would  be  cntirel}'  new,  entirely  unlike  an}' 
thing  we  had  ever  seen  before,  either  in  color, 
form,  or  composition.  This  is  very  much  the 
effect  produced  upon  us  when  we  come  to  learn  the 
catholic  doctrine  about  the  Sacraments.  It  intro- 
duces us  into  a  new  world.  It  gives  us  new  ideas. 
It  is  more  than  a  discovery;  for  it  amounts  to  a 
revelation.  The  Sacraments  are  part  of  the  new 
World  introduced  into  creation  by  the  Incarnation 
of  the  Eternal  Word,  and  therefore  are  an  essen- 
tial part  of  creation  as  it  was  eternally  pre- 
ordained by  God.  Yet  they  are  quite  distinct 
from  any  other  province  in  creation.  The  Sacra- 
ments of  the  Old  Law  were  but  shadows  of  the 
Sacraments  of  the  Gospel.  The  Sacraments  of 
the  New  Law  are  created  things  which  have  been 
devised  and  fabricated  by  our  Blessed  Lord  him- 
self. The  Eucharist  was  foreshadowed  by  the 
Paschal  Lamb:  the  Sacrament,  of  Order  by  the 
consecration  of  priests;  and  Penance  by  the  Legal 


THE    EMPIRE    OF   THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.         "135 

purifications  of  the  tabernacle.  There  was  no 
shadow  of  Confirmation,  because  it  is  the  Sacra- 
ment of  the  fulness  of  grace,  and  so  can  belong 
only  to  the  Gospel  dispensation.  Neither  was 
there  any  shadow  of  Extreme  Unction,  because 
it  is  the  immediate  preparation  for  the  entrance 
of  the  soul  into  glory;  and  there  was  no  entrance 
into  glory  for  any  human  soul  till  Jesus  had  risen 
and  ascended.  Neither  could  Matrimony  be  a 
Sacrament  under  the  Old  Law,  because  the  Word 
had  not  yet  actually  wedded  our  human  nature; 
and  the  sacramentality  of  Marriage  consists  in  its 
being  the  figure  of  those  transcendent  nuptials 
of  the  Sacred  Humanity. 

What  then  shall  we  call  these  Sacraments  ?  They 
are  not  persons,  yet  they  seem  to  be  scarcely 
things:  I  mean  that  they  seem  to  be  something 
more  than  things.  We  want  another  word  for 
them,  another  name,  and  cannot  find  one.  They 
are  powers,  lives,  shrines,  marvels,  divine  hiding- 
places,  centres  of  heavenly  power,  supernatural 
magnificences,  engraftings  of  heaven  upon  earth, 
fountains  of  grace,  mysterious  efficacies,  marriages 
of  matter  and  spirit,  beautiful  complications  of 
God  and  man.  Each  Sacrament  is  a  sj)ecies  by 
itself.  Each  has  some  specialty,  which  is  at  once 
its  excellence  and  its  mystery.  The  pre-eminence 
of  Baptism  consists  in  its  remission  of  original  sin 
and  of  the  pains  due  to  it.  The  pre-eminence  of 
Confirmation  resides  in  the  vastness  of  the  succors 
of  actual  grace  which  it  brings  with  it,  as  we  see 
in  the  fortitude  which  it  conferred  upon  the  Apos- 
tles, and  which  the  Eucharist  had  not  conferred 


136         THE    EMPIRE    OF   THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

The  Sacrament  of  Penance  can  claim  the  privi- 
le<>-e  of  being  the  most  necessary  of  all  Sacra- 
ments  to  those  who  have  been  baptized,  and  of 
the  capability  of  reiterated  remission  of  mortal 
sin,  which  Baptism  cannot  claim.  Extreme  Unc- 
tion excels  Penance  in  the  greater  copiousness 
of  its  graces.  The  excellence  of  Order  consists 
In  its  placing  men  in  the  singularly  sublime  state 
of  being  domestic  ministers  of  Christ.  Matrimony- 
has  a  glory  of  its  own  in  its  signification  of  the 
union  of  our  Lord  with  the  Church.  The  pre- 
eminence of  the  Eucharist  resides,  as  St.  Thomas 
says,  in  the  very  substance  of  the  Sacrament, 
seeing  that  it  is  as  it  were  the  Sacrament  of  all 
the  other  Sacraments,  the  centre  of  them,  the 
cause  of  them,  the  end  of  them,  and  the  harmony 
of  them.  All  are  because  of  it,  and  are  subordi- 
nate to  its  amazing  supremacy. 

These  Sacraments  were  designed  by  our  Lord 
himself,  and  were  instituted  by  him  with  varying 
decrees  of  detail  as  to  matter  and  form  in  various 
Sacraments;  and  yet,  saving  their  substance,  be 
has  given  his  Church  very  extensive  power  over 
them,  because  they  are  so  intimately  connected 
with  its  unity.  We  see  the  exercise  of  this  power 
in  the  bread  of  the  Eucharist,  in  the  impediments 
of  Marriage,  and  in  the  varieties  of  Order  in  tho 
Latin  and  Greek  Churches.  The  Sacraments  are 
institutions  which  illustrate  at  once  the  magni- 
ficence of  God's  dominion  over  his  creation,  and 
also  the  capability  of  creatures  to  be  elevated  by 
him  to  astonishing  sublimities  far  beyond  tho 
merit  and  due  of  nature;  and  this  devability  of 


THE    EMriRE   OF   THE   PRECIOUS   BU  DD.         I'd'' 

creatures  is  one  of  the  most  glorious  manifests 
tions  of  the  liberty  of  God  * 


*  There    are    certain    differences   of    opinion    in    theology 
which  seem  to  keep  quiet  in  their  own  subject-matter,    and 
not  to  control  other  opinions  in  separate  departments  of  theo- 
logy.    But  there  are,  on  the  contrary,  opinions,  often  of  seem- 
ingly little   or  merely  local   importance,   which    draw   along 
with  them  a  man's  whole  theology.    Among  these,  hardly  any 
is   more  remarkable   than   the   opinion   we  may  form   on  the 
subject  of  what  theology  calls   "potenlia  obedientialis."      I 
mention  this  here,  because  in  the  exposition  of  the  doctrine 
of  the  Sacraments  given  in  the  text,   I  have  taken  pains  to 
use  no  expressions  which  shall  be  unfair  to  those  who  hold 
the  moral  operation,  and  not  the  physical  operation,  of  the 
Sacraments.      Amicus  has  beautifully  shown  that  both   the 
theories  equally,  though  differently,    magnify  the  grandeur 
of  the  Sacraments.      If  the  physical  theory  attributes  to  them 
a    more   marvellous    operation    on   the  recipient,    the   moral 
theory  attributes  to  them  a  mere  mysterious  action  upon  God 
himself.     I   wish  to   observe   also   that,   although   there  is  a 
manifest,  sympathy  between  the  Scotist  doctrine  of  the  Sacra- 
ments and  the  Scotist  doctrine  of  potentia  obedientialis,  the 
connection  is  not  necessary.   It  is  a  matter  of  sympathy  rather 
than  of  logic.       A   man  who   holds  the   moral  theory  of  the 
operation  of  the  Sacraments   lies  under  the  same   obligation 
of  explaining  his  potentia  obedientialis  as  one  who  holds  the 
physical  theory.    This  Amicus  has  candidly  pointed  out.    The 
doctrine  of  potentia  obedientialis  is  to  me  the  part  of  Scotus'a 
system  which  is  most  hard  to  receive.     St.  Thomas's  doctrine 
of  potentia  opens  out  a  view  of  creation  much  more  deep  and 
philosophical,  from  this  point  of  view,  while,  when  we  come 
to  look  at  creation  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  Incarnation, 
Scutus  seems  to  be  much  more  deep  and  philosophical  than 
St.  Thomas.     Perhaps   the  views  of  the  later   scholastics   on 
potentia  obedientialis  are  still  more  philosophical.      I  would 
venture  to  recommend  a  special  study  of  this  question  to  stu- 
dents of  theology,  as   one  which  particularly  gives  unity  and 
consistency  to  the   multitude  of  a  man's  theological  tenets 

12* 


138         THE   EMriRE   OF   THE   l'RECIOUS   BLOOD. 

Tho  Sacraments  arc  not  mere  signs  of  grace, 
but  causes  of  it.  They  cause  grace  in  us  physi- 
cally by  the  omnipotence  of  God  which  exists  in 
them  as  if  it  were  their  own  proper  virtue  and 
energy")  for  the  omnipotence  of  God  exists  so  spe- 
cially in  the  Sacraments  that  if,  by  impossibility, 
God  were  not  omnipresent,  he  would  nevertheless 
be  present  in  the  Sacraments.  The  Sacraments 
cause  grace  physically,  just  as  our  Lord's  Blood, 
shed  long  ago,  cleanses  us  from  our  sins  physi- 
cally, not  morally  only,  and  just  as  his  Resurrec- 
tion and  Ascension  cause  our  resurrection  and 
ascension  physically,  by  an  energy  and  a  force 
which  God  has  appropriated  to  them.*     The  Sa- 


See  Ripalda,  De  Ente  Supernaturali,  lib.  ii.  and  especially 
Disputations  4U  and  41.  Haunoldus,  Controversias  Theolo- 
gicte,  lib.  iv.  tract  ii.  cap.  1,  controversia  2.  Amicus,  the 
latter  part  of  l)isp.  iv.,  de  Causalitate  Sacrament orum,  and  all 
Disp.  v.,  de  Potmiia  Ubedientiali,  and  Disp.  vi.,  Quae  entia  et 
ad  quos  effectus  elevari  possint.  Viva,  the  whrle  of  Disp.  ii., 
de  Causalitate  Sacrament  orum ;  ana  the  other  great  theolo- 
gians in  loco.  But  in  connect  ion  should  oe  read  also  in  tho 
different,  writers  de  Angelis  the  treatment  of  tne  question, 
An  creatio  communicari  possit  creaturae  obedientialitei,  ana 
its  cognate  questions,  which  are  to  be  found  under  the  de 
principio  productivo  Angelorum  :  or,  in  some  theologmns, 
rnder  de  Deo,  especially  de  Dei  cognoscibilitate,  or  de  Beati- 
tudine,  or  de  Hominis  creatione,  or  de  Opificio  sex  dierum. 
1  would  especially  mention  the  De  Deo  of  Francis  de  Lugo, 
Disp.  vii.,  De  ente  supernaturali  in  communi,  and  Disp.  viii., 
De  variis  divisionibus  entis  Bupernaturalis :  and  likewise  tho 
10th  and  11th  Disputations  in  Arriaga  de  Sacramentis. 
There  are  also  some  interesting  things  in  the  huge  work 
of  Castaldus  the  Dominican,  de  Intestate  Angelica,  and  in 
Ar,-iaga's  Physics. 

*  Viva  Pars.,  vii.  Disp.  ii.  q.  2. 


THE    EMPIRE    OF   THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.         139 

ci  iments  also  cause  grace  in  us  morally,  by 
representing  to  the  Father  the  merits  of  Christ's 
Passion  actually  accomplished,  and  so  rifting  a  sort 
of  holy  and  irresistible  violence  to  God,  and 
thereby  procuring  for  us  more  abundant,  and  at 
the  same  time  very  special,  succors  of  grace. 
Both  these  methods  of  causing  grace  bring  vividly 
before  us  the  unspeakable  majesty  of  the  Sacra- 
ments, and  enable  us  to  estimate  the  grandeur 
of  the  merits  of  our  dearest  Lord;  but  perhaps 
of  the  two  methods  the  honor  of  Jesus  is  most 
concerned  in  the  Sacraments  causing  grace  phy- 
sically, because  it.  is  more  intimate  to  him  so  to 
cause  it,*  and  in  many  other  respects  more  divine 
and  more  excellent.  But  these  are  questions  too 
difficult  for  us  to  enter  upon  here.  It  is  enough 
to  say  with  St.  Chrysostom  that  the  way  in 
which  the  Sacraments  confer  grace  is  above  the 
power  of  an  angel  to  tell,  or  with  St.  Gregory 
Nysscn  that  the  grace  of  Baptism  transcends 
human  understanding.  Such  language  could 
hardly  be   used  of  the  merely  moral  efficacy  of 


*  Sicut  Caro  Christi  habuit  virtutem  instrumentalem  ad 
faciendum  miracula  propter  conjunctionem  ad  Verbum,  ita 
Sacrament  a  per  conjunctionem  ad  Christum  crucifixum  et 
possum.  S.  Thomas,  Quodlibet.  12,  art.  14.  Theology  suggests 
three  ways  in  which  the  Sacraments  may  confer  grace  phy- 
sically,— per  virtutem  obedientialem  cum  concursu  omni- 
potentiae,  per  qualitatem  supernaturalem  intrinsecam,  per 
omnipotent! am  specialiter  inexistentem.  In  the  text  the 
third  method  has  been  adopted,  in  harmony  with  the  views 
of  Viva  ;  but  the  theological  discussion  of  the  question 
has  been  avoided  as  unfit  for  the  popular  character  of  thin 
Treatise. 


110         THE    EMIGRE   OF   TIIE   TRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

the  Sacraments;  and,  as  Viva  observes,  if  tlio 
fires  of  Purgatory  and  Hell  act  upon  the  scul 
physically  in  real  and  marvellous  ways,  it  is  at 
least  congruous  to  suppose  that  the  instruments 
of  the  Divine  Mercy  shall  enjoy  the  same  privi- 
leges as  the  instruments  of  the  Divine  Justice. 
But  the  Sacraments  not  only  confer  sanctifying 
grace  and  infuse  habits  of  virtue,  both  physically 
and  morally:  they  also  confer  a  certain  special 
sacramental  grace,  which  is  peculiar  and  distinct 
in  each  Sacrament.  It  is  difficult  to  explain  this 
sacramental  grace;  hut  it  seems  to  be  a  special 
power  to  obtain  from  God,  by  a  certain  right 
founded  upon  his  decrees,  particular  assistances 
and  kinds  of  grace  in  order  to  the  fulfilment  of 
each  Sacrament.  Moreover,  it  belongs  to  the 
grace  of  the  Sacraments  that  certain  of  them 
impress  what  is  called  a  character,  or  seal,  or 
si -niet,  on  the  soul.  The  nature  of  this  character 
is  involved  in  mystery ;  but  the  most  probable 
interpretation  of  it  is  that  which  describes  it  as 
a  natural  similitude  of  the  Soul  of  Jesus,  likening 
our  souls  to  his,  and  imparting  hiddenly  to  our 
souls  a  resemblance  of  his,  bidden  in  this  life, 
but  to  be  divulged  with  exceeding  glory  here- 
after. This  is  a  beautiful  thought,  and  fills  us 
fu'l  of  a  peculiar  love  for  the  dear  Human  Soul 
of  Jesus.  Lastly,  the  grace  of  Sacraments  sus- 
pended or  dormant  has  a  marvellous  power  of 
revival,  which  enhances  the  mystery  and  the 
magnificence  of  these  strange  and  unparalleled 
works  of  God. 

But  our  clearest  idea  of  the  Sacraments  is  that 
which  we  gain  from  Hugh  St.  Victor  and  the  elder 


THE    EMPIRE    OF   THE   TRECIOUS    BLOOD.         141 

theologians.  They  arc  the  making  visible  of  invisi- 
ble grace.  In  them  the  Precious  Blood  lias  clothed 
itself  in  visible  forms.  In  the  matter  and  form 
of  tbe  Sacraments  it  has  put  on  its  priestly  vest- 
ments, of  unearthly  fashion,  and  of  manifold  signifi- 
cance. Indeed,  the  grace  of  the  Sacraments  is  the 
very  physical  grace  which  was  in  the  Soul  of  Jesus, 
replicated,  as  theology  speaks,  that  is,  repeated 
again  and  again  in  us,  and  repeated  in  us  by  means 
of  the  Precious  Blood.  Many  theologians  have 
held  that  all  the  grace,  which  is  in  any  of  us,  was 
first^physieally,  really,  and  locally,  in  the  Soul  of 
Christ-)-  so  that  our  grace  is,  most  literally  and 
most  affectingly,  a  derivation  from  the  abundance 
of  his  grace.  How  near  does  this  exquisite  doc- 
trine seem  to  bring  us  to  our  dearest  Lord  !*  Do 
the  forms,  the  fashions,  and  varieties  of  these 
sevenfold  sacramental  garments,  in  which  the 
Precious  Blood  clothes  itself,  tell  us  of  its  mys- 
teries, its  nature,  or  its  character?  Doubtless 
they  have  deep  meaning,  and  are  symbolical 
of  its  genius;  but  we  are  unable  to  decipher 
them.  They  are  hieroglj-phics  of  some  hidden 
wisdom  of  God.  But  we  see  so  much  as  this:  that 
the  Sacraments  are  the  actions  of  Christ.  He 
instituted  them  as  Man  ;  and  thus  they  are  the 
going -on  of  the  Thirty-  Three  Years  upon  earth.     Thi(T 

*  Some  eminent  theologians  have  even  held  that  of  two 
Communions  of  equal  fervor,  one  by  a  layman,  and  one  by  a 
priest,  the  priest's  Communion  would  merit  more,  because  of 
his  conjunction  with  our  Blessed  Lord  as  his  domestic  minister. 
In  like  manner  the  special  efficacy  of  our  Lady's  prayers  is 
attributed  precisely  to  her  conjunction  with  our  Lord  as  his 
Mother. 


142        THE    EMTIRE    OF   THE    TREC10US   BLOOD. 

is  the  clearest  and  the  truest  view  of  these  mar- 
vellous portions  of  creation.  Let  us  now  see  if  we 
have  not  learned  enough  of  their  theology  to  medi- 
tate practically  upon  them  in  connection  with  our 
subject. 

The  Sacraments  are  then,  as  we  sec,  in  a  very 
special  sense  the  vases  of  the  Precious  Blood. 
They  are  the  means  by  which  the  Precious  Blood 
is  ordinarily  applied  to  the  souls  of  men.  They 
are  the  most  characteristic  features  in  the  economy 
of  grace.  They  are  the  most  striking  memorials 
of  the  love  of  Jesus;  and  a  knowledge  of  them  is 
most  necessary  to  a  right  understanding  of  re- 
demption. This  is  not  the  place  for  entering 
further  upon  the  doctrine  and  definition  of  the 
Sacraments.  My  readers  arc  doubtless  sufficiently 
familiar  with  the  teaching  of  the  Church  upon  a 
subject  of  such  constant  practical  importance,  and 
what  has  been  said  in  the  foregoing  pages  will  en- 
able them  to  call  to  mind  at  least  its  most  promi- 
nent features.  But  it  is  very  needful  for  our 
present  subject  that  we  should  make  some  reflec- 
tions upon  the  Sacraments,  rather  in  the  way  of 
meditation  than  of  doctrine.  We  cannot  do  justice 
to  the  Precious  Blood  of  our  dearest  Lord,  unless 
we  have  a  true  spiritual  discernment,  a  lov-ng  ad- 
mi  ration^  and  an  immense  esteem  of  the  grandeur, 
riches,  and  sweetness  of  the  Sacraments,  in  an 
ascetical  point  of  view,  I  hardly  know  any  thing 
upon  which  I  should  lay  greater  stress  in  thes:>  days, 
than  a  fervent  devotion  to  the  Sacraments. 

The  Sacraments  are  the  inventions  of  God  'urn- 
self.  No  creature  could  have  devised  them.  }  do 
not  believe  that  without  revelation  the  motftmc^P\t<- 


THE    EMPIRE    OF    THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.         143 

cent  intelligence  of  the  angels  could  have  imagined 
such  a  thing-  as  a  Sacrament.     It  is  a  peculiar  idea 
of  God.     It  represents  a  combination  of  his  most 
wonderful  perfections.     It   conveys  to  us  in  itself 
quite   a   distinctive    notion  of  God.     We    already 
know  God  as  the  unbeginning   God.     We  know 
him  also  as  the  God  of  nature  and  as  the  God  of 
grace.     These  are  two  different  disclosures  of  him 
to  us.     So  the  knowledge  of  him  as  the  God  who 
devised  the  Sacraments  is  another  disclosure  of 
him.     It  adds  many  new  ideas  of  him  to  the  other 
ideas  of  him  which  we  possessed  before.     We  should 
in  some  respects  have  thought  differently  of  God, 
if  there  had  been  no  Sacraments,  from  what  we 
think  now.     This  is  a  great  deal  to  say.     It  con- 
fers upon  the  Sacraments  a  most  singular  dignity, 
or  rather  it  expresses  in   an  intelligible   manner 
that  singular  dignity  which  belongs  to  them.    More- 
over, God  not  only  invented  them,  but  be  invented 
them  for  the  most  magnificent  of  purposes.     Ho 
invented  them,  that  by  their  means  especially  he 
might  impart  his  Divine  Xatui-e  to  created  natures, 
tTiat  he  might  justify  sinners,  that  he  might  sanc- 
tify .souls,  that  be  might  unite  to  himself  the  race 
whose  nature  he  had  condescended  to  sinoje  out 
and  assume  to  himself.     If  tbvy  are  his  own  in- 
vention, they  must  be  works  of  unspeakable  excel- 
lence; for  the  least  of  bis  works  is  excellent :  but, 
if  they  were  meant  also  for  purposes  so  dear  to 
him  and  of  such  an  exalted  character,  who  shall 
be  able  rightly  to  imagine  the  excellence  of  these 
Sacraments  ?     Furthermore,  they  are  very  peculiar 
inventions.     They  do  not  follow  the  laws  of  nature. 
They  even  superadd  to  the   laws  of  grace,     'lhey 


144        THE    EMIGRE   OF   THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

arc  things  apart,  almost  belonging  to  an  order  of 
their  own.  They  are  apparently  without  parallel 
in  all  creation.  I  know  of  nothing  else  to  which 
I  could  liken  them.  They  come  out  of  some  depth 
in  the  unfathomable  wisdom  of  God,  which  does 
not  seem  to  have  given  out  any  other  specimens 
of  itself.  They  are  emanations  of  some  abyss  of 
bis  magnificence,  which  has  only  opened  once,  to 
give  them  forth,  and  then  has  closed,  and  rested. 
As  matter  and  spirit,  as  nature  and  grace,  are 
samples  of  God's  beauty,  tokens  of  ineffable  reali- 
ties in  him,  manifestations  of  his  invisible  treasures, 
so  likewise  are  the  Sacraments.  They  invest  God 
with  a  new  light  in  our  minds.  They  are  some  of 
his  eternal  ideas,  the  more  imperiously  demanding 
our  devout  study,  because  we  have  no  others  like 
them,  no  others  which  we  can  use  as  similitudes  or 
as  terms  of  comparison.  My  knowledge  of  God  is 
not  only  increased  in  degree,  but  it  is  extended  in 
kind,  by  my  knowledge  of  a  Sacrament. 

Strictly  speaking,  we  do  not  call  the  Sacraments 
miraculous.  They  have  laws  of  their  own.  So 
perhaps  have  miracles.  But  the  laws  of  the  Sacra- 
ments are  revealed  to  us.  Their  action  follows 
rules',  and  is,  under  fitting  circumstances,  invaria- 
ble. Their  order  and  immutability  are  two  of 
their  most  striking  features;  and  this  distinguishes 
them  from  miracles.  They  are  processes;  and  in 
this  also  they  are  unlike  what  we  popularly  term 
miracles.  But  so  far  as  they  are  wonder-working, 
so  far  as  their_results  call  forth  our  astonishment, 
BO  far  as  their  effects  are  beyond  the  power  of 
nature,  so  far  as  their  completeness  and  their  iu-_ 
stantaneousness  are  concerned,  so  far  as  therevola- 


THE    EMPIRE    OF   THE    TRECrOUS    BLOOD.         145 

tions  they  accomplish  and  the  transmutations  they 
make  are  beyond  the  strength  of  common  grace, 
so  far  as  their  success  is  in  their  secret  divinity, — • 
bo  far  we  may  call  their  operation  miraculous.  It 
Is  certainly  in  the  highest  degree  mysterious. 
Their  use  of  matter  seems  to  point  to  a  philosophy 
of  matter  and  spirit  far  deeper  than  any  which 
has  yet  been  taught.  It  awakens  trains  of  thought 
which  carry  us  rapidly  into  speculations  which  are 
too  high  for  us,  yet  which  give  us  now  and  then 
unsystematic  glances  into  the  secrets  of  creation. 
The  forms  of  the  Sacraments  betoken  a  myste- 
rious grandeur  in  language,  reminding  us  of  God's 
peculiar  way  of  working  by  efficacious  words,  a 
characteristic  which  doubtless  is  connected  in  some 
hidden  manner  with  the  Eternal  Generation  of  the 
Word.  The  invisible  sacerdotal  power  which  is 
necessary  to  the  validity  of  so  many  of  the  Sacra- 
ments is  another  of  their  splendors,  while  the  Sacra- 
ments which  do  not  need  it  imply  that  latent 
priesthood  which  abides  in  all  Christians,  and 
which  is  an  emanation  of  our  Savior's  own  priest- 
hood "after  the  order  of  Melchisedec."  The  juris- 
diction required  for  the  administration  of  so  many 
of  the  Sacraments,  and  especially  for  valid  absolu- 
tion, is  a  participation  in  those  regal  powers  which 
belong  to  the  kingdom  of  Christ,  to  the  Church  in 
its  character  of  a  monarchy.  The  power  of  the 
Church  itself  to  limit  the  validity  of  a  Sacrament, 
as  in  the  case  of  reserved  sins  in  Confession,  and 
of  impediments  in  Matrimony,  is  another  feature 
in  the  Sacraments,  which  enhances  their  mysterious 
character,  while  it  exalts  that  lordship  of  the 
Sacred  Humanity  of  Jesus  which  has  been  so  co- 
K  13 


146         THE    EMPIRE    OF    THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

piously  imparted  to  the  Church.  All  these  thinga 
are  points  for  meditation,  which  cannot  fail  to  till 
the  soul  with  reverence  and  love,  and  to  unite  it 
more  closely  with  God,  by  making  us  feel  how  the 
natural  is  hemmed  in  with  the  divine,  and  with 
what  awful  reality  we  are  always  lying  in  the 
arms  of  God,  with  our  liberty  held  up,  secured, 
and  at  once  imprisoned  and  set  at  large,  by  all 
this  exuberance  of  supernatural  interventions. 

The  grace  of  the  Sacraments  is  another~suf>)cct 
for  pious  wonder.  The  special  grace  of  each 
Sacrament,  peculiar  to  itself  and  accomplishing  a 
peculiar  end,  is  a  marvel  in  itself.  Just  as  the  sun 
brings  out  the  blossoms,  and  paints  their  variegated 
leaves  in  parti-colored  patterns,  though  the  whole 
leaf  is  supplied  with  the  same  sap  through  the  same 
veins,  so  does  the  Sun  of  justice  work  in  the  special 
graces  of  the  Sacraments.  How  he  determines 
them  to  such  various  effects  is  a  secret  hidden  from 
us.  The  Sacraments  have  probably  spiritual  laws 
of  their  own,  which  are  neither  gratuitous  nor 
arbitrary,  but  founded  in  some  intrinsic  fitness  of 
things,  which  results  from  the  character  of  God. 
The  special  grace  of  each  Sacrament  seems  to  be 
almost  a  vfsibTe  approach  of  God  to  the  individual 
soul,  to  accomplish  some  particular  end,  or  con- 
firm some  definite  vocation,  or  interfere  in  some 
distinct  crisis.  It  is  not  his  usual  way  of  work- 
ing. It  is  not  merely  a  general  augmentation  of 
sanctifying  grace,  an  infusion  of  livelier  faith,  of 
keener  hope,  or  of  more  burning  charity.  It  is 
something  more  intimate  between  God  and  the 
soul,  more  personal,  more  full  of  reference  to  the 
individual    case.     Again,    we    must    not   omit   to 


THE    EMPIRE    OF   THE    TUECIOUS   BLOOD.         117 

reflect  on  the  inexhaustibleness  of  the  grace  of  tho 
Sacraments.  It  takes  an  immense  heroism  like 
martyrdom  to  come  near  to  the  grace  of  a  Sacra- 
ment. Even  martyrdom  doejj  ooi  supersede  Bap- 
tism or  Confession^  if  they  can  be  had.  No  one 
Can  tell  how  much  grace  lies  in  a  single  Sacrament. 
In  a  single  Communion  lies  all  grace;  for  in  it  is 
the  Author  and  Fountain  of  all  grace;  and,  if  the 
theological  opinion  he  true,  that  there  is  no  grace 
in  any  of  his  members  which  has  not  actually  been 
first  in  our  Lord  himself,  then  all  the  grace  of  all 
the  world  lies  in  one  Communion,  to  be  unsealed 
and  enjoyed  by  the  degree  of  fervor  which  we 
bring.  The  saints  have  said  that  a  single  Cona 
munion  was  enough  to  make  a  saint.  Who  car 
tell  if  an}-  created  soul  has  ever  yet  drained  an} 
single  Sacrament  of  the  whole  amount  of  grace 
which  was  contained  in  it  simply  by  virtue  of  itt 
being  a  Sacrament?  I  should  be  inclined  to  think 
from  manifold  analogies  both  of  nature  and  of 
grace,  that  no  Sacrament  had  ever  been  duly 
emptied  of  its  grace,  not  even  in  the  Communions 
of  our  Blessed  Lady. 

No  Sacrament  is  content  to  confine  itself  to  the 
conferring  of  its  special  grace.  There  is  always 
an  exuberance  about  it,  giving  more  than  is  asked, 
doing  more  than  is  promised,  reaching  further  than 
was  expected.  This  is  a  characteristic  cf  all  God's 
works.  His  magnificence  is  confined  in  every  one 
of  them,  and  is  forever  bursting  its  bounds,  and 
carrying  light,  and  beauty,  and  fertility,  and  blcss- 
imr,  far  bevond  the  shrine  in  which  it  had  been 
localized.  But  the  Perfection  of  God,  which  above 
all  others  the  Sacraments  appear  to  represent;  is 


148  THE    EMriRE    OF    THE    TRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

his  magnificence.  They  belong  to  this  Attribute 
in  a  very  special  and  peculiar  way.  Hence  there 
is  about  them  a  redundancy  of  grace,  a  prodigality 
of  power,  a  profuseness  and  lavishness  of  benedic- 
tion,  which  go  beyond  the  ordinary  laws  of  the 
world  of  grace.  Moreover,  besides  this  exuberance, 
there  is  an  agility  about  the  Sacraments  which  is 
most  worth}'  of  note.  Sometimes,  if  need  lie,  one 
will  do  the  work  of  another.  Those,  which  have 
no  office  to  communicate  first  grace  and  justify  tlie 
sinner,  will  do  so  under  certain  circumstances. 
Communion  will  forgive.  Extreme  Unction  will 
absolve:  not  ordinarily,  but  when  there  is  neces- 
sity for  it,  and  the  fitting  dispositions.  We  cannot 
think  without  surprise  of  this  power  of  transform- 
ing themselves,  and  of  passing  into  each  other  and 
supplying  for  each  other,  which  within  certain 
limits  the  Sacraments  possess.  Furthermore,  the 
rivers  of  grace  in  the  Sacraments  never  run  dry. 
Consider  the  multitude  of  Sacraments  administered 
daily  in  the  Church.  Picture  to  yourself  the  won- 
derfulness  of  grace  and  its  supernatural  excellence, 
and  then  imagine  the  quantity  of  it  drawn  out  of 
the  eternal  fountains  for  the  well-being  of  the  world. 
It  is  an  overwhelming  thought.  Grace  is  not 
only  more  abundant  in  the  Sacraments,  and  more 
nimble,  but  it  is  also  more  sure,  more  invariable, 
more  victorious.  It  is  also  more  patient.  Grace 
waits  longer  inside  the  Sacraments,  than  out  of 
them.  They  seem  to  detain  it,  to  hold  heaven 
down  upon  earth  with  a  sweet  force,  and  so  to 
multiply  the  occasions  and  prolong  the  opportuni- 
ties of  men. 

The  character,  which  some  of  the  Sacraments 


TUK    EMPIRE    OF    THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.        115 

confer,  also  belongs  to  their  grace.  It  is  a  revela- 
tion to  us  of  the  divine  impetuosity  and  energy 
of  the  Sacraments.  Amid  the  ardors  of  heaven, 
and  in  the  dazzling  splendors  of  the  Beatific  Vision, 
the  mystic  signets,  the  inexplicable  characters  of 
the  Sacraments,  three  in  number,  as  if  adumbrating 
the  Three  Divine  Persons,  shine  forth  as  distinct 
beauties,  and  brighten  through  eternity.  The  cha- 
racter of  Baptism  is  as  it  were  the  finger-mark  of 
the  Eternal  Father  on  the  soul.  The  character  of 
Order  glistens  like  the  unfailing  unction  of  the 
priesthood  of  the  Eternal  Son.  The  character  of 
Confirmation  is  the  deep  mark,  which  the  fires  of 
the  Holy  Ghost  burned  in,  the  pressure  of  his  tre- 
mendous fortitude,  which  was  laid  upon  us,  and 
yet  we  perished  not,  so  tenderly  and  so  gently  did 
he  touch  us.  In  the  wild  fury  of  the  tempestuous 
fires  of  hell  the  same  characters  glow  terribly. 
They  arc  indestructible  even  there,  fiery  shames, 
intolerable  disgraces,  distinct  fountains  of  special 
agony  forever  and  forever. 

To  these  reflections  on  the  grace  of  the  Sacra- 
ments we  must  not  fail  to  add  a  due  consideration 
of  the  doctrine  of  intention.  What  things  can  be 
more  purely  divine  than  these  Sacraments?  Yet 
see  how  sensible  they  are  to  human  touch!  It  is 
as  if  the  very  delicacy  of  their  divine  fabric  made 
them  more  liable  to  human  impressions.  They 
are  jealous  of  their  powers.  They  do  not  need  our 
active  co-operation,  so  much  as  our  permission. 
They  require  obstacles  to  be  removed,  but  not 
assistance  to  be  conferred.  TJiey_work,  as  we  say 
in  theology,  b}T  the  forcg_of  their  own  work,  not 
by^the  energjr  of  the  redpicnt.      This   is   their 


150         THE    EMPIRE    OP    THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

peculiarity.  It  is  this  which  distinguishes  them 
from  other  means  of  grace.  They  have  reason  to 
be  jealous  of  so  magnificent  a  distinction.  Yet, 
in  spite  of  all  this,  they  are  so  sensitive  to  tho 
touch  of  our  fervor,  that  they  unlock  fresh  and 
fresh  graces  according  as  we  press  them,  as  if  in 
their  love  and  their  likeness  to  God  they  were 
delighted  to  be  pressed,  to  be  solicited,  and  to  bo 
importuned.  They  are  also  so  delicate  and  so 
susceptible  that  they  are  at  the  mercy  of  our  in- 
tentions. The  very  thought  of  this  makes  us 
tremble.  We  could  almost  wish  it  were  not  so. 
To  be  so  fragile,  while  they  are  so  exceedingly 
strong,  is  not  this  a  surprise  and  a  perplexity,  not 
seldom  too  a  sorrow  and  a  dread':'  It  seems  to 
show  that  they  are  purely  things  of  heaven,  exotics 
upon  earth,  or  weapons  of  omnipotence  becoming 
brittle  when  they  are  plunged  suddenly  among 
human  actions.  Baptism  can  justify  the  child 
wdiosc  reason  has  not  dawned.  Extreme  Unction 
can  deal  with  the  relics  of  sin  in  a  sinner  who  lies 
insensible.  Such  independent  power  have  these 
masterful  Sacraments.  Yet  are  they  in  bondage 
to  our  intention.  They  must  be  human  acts,  if 
the}x  are  to  be  divine  ones  also.  They  ai'e  not 
mere  charms,  or  spells,  or  sleight  of  hand.  They 
have  magic  about  them,  but  it  is  only  that  magic 
of  incredible  love  in  which  God  has  clothed  them 
with  such  resplendent  beaut}*.  Nothing,  as  I 
think,  demonstrates  the  divinity  of  the  Sacraments 
more  evidently  than  this  exquisite  sensitiveness  to 
human  touch. 

Now  look  out  upon  the  great  laboring  world, 
the  world  of  human  actions  and  endurances      It  is 


THE    EMPIRE    OF   THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD.        151 

not  possible  to  measure  the  influence  which  is 
being  exercised  apon  the  world  at  this  moment  by 
the  Sacraments.  They  are  penetrating  the  great 
mass  of  mankind  like  the  network  of  veins  and 
arteries  in  a  living  body.  The}'  are  being  the 
eauses  of  millions  of  actions,  and  they  are  hinder- 
ing the  consequences  of  millions  of  other  actions. 
The}'  are  weaving  good,  and  unweaving  evil,  in- 
cessantly. The  roots  of  great  events,  which  grow- 
up  and  tower  in  history,  are  perhaps  fixed  in  some 
secret  Sacrament  or  other.  The  silent  and  orderly 
revolutions  of  the  Church  are  often  moulded  in 
them.  Society  would  hardly  credit  to  what  an 
extent  it  is  held  together  by  them.  The  influence 
of  a  single  reception  of  a  Sacrament  may  be  handed 
down  for  generations;  and  the  making  of  the  des- 
tinies of  thousands  may  be  in  its  hands.  At  this 
instant  by  far  the  greatest  amount  of  earth's  in- 
tercourse with  heaven  is  carried  on,  directly  or 
indirectK  through  the  Sacraments.  There  is  a 
vast  wild  world  of  sorrow  upon  earth.  But  over 
great  regions  of  it  the  Sacraments  are  distillino- 
dews  of  heavenly  peace.  In  the  underground 
scenery  of  hidden  hearts  they  are  at  work,  turning 
wells  of  bitterness  into  springs  of  freshness  and 
of  life.  They  are  drying  the  widow's  tears,  rais- 
ing up  unexpected  benefactors  for  the  orphan, 
nerving  the  pusillanimous,  softening  the  desperate, 
rousing  the  torpid,  crowning  those  who  strive,  and 
doing  all  things  for  those  who  die.  As  the  animals 
came  trooping  to  Adam  to  be  named,  so  mortal 
sorrows  are  coming  in  herds  at  all  hours  to  the 
Sacraments  to  receive  the  blessing  of  the  second 
Adam.      Somewhere  or  other  at  this  moment  a 


152  THE   EMPIRE   OF   THE   rRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

Communion  may  be  giving  a  vocation  to  soma 
youthful  apostle  who  in  after-years  shall  carry  the 
Gospel  to  populous  tribes  in  the  Asian  uplands,  or 
throughout  the  newly-opened  river-system  of 
neglected  Africa.  Crowds  in  heaven  shall  owe 
their  endless  bliss  to  that  one  Communion. 

But  the  world  of  human  joys  is  not  much  less 
vast  than  the  world  of  human  sorrows;  and  the 
Sacraments  are  there  also,  purifying,  elevating, 
sanctifying,  multiplying,  supernaturalizing  multi- 
tudes of  these  blameless  delights.  Yet  there  is  a 
difference  between  their  action  upon  sorrows  and 
their  action  upon  joys.  They  make  no  sorrows. 
They  cause  no  mourning.  They  create  no  dark- 
ness. Whereas  they  are  forever  creating  glad- 
nejsfigj^  Splendors  flash  from  them  as  they  move, 
and  their  splendors  are  all  jubilees.  They  are 
fountains  of  happiness  to  all  the  earth.  They  cover 
even  the  monotonous  sands  of  life  with  verdure, 
and  make  the  desert  bloom,  and  crown  the  hard 
rocks  with  flowers,  and  beautify  with  their  soft- 
ness the  sternest  solitudes.  Who  can  tell  what 
sonii'S  of  human  goodness  are  being  sung  this  hour 
in  the  ear  of  God,  because  of  the  joyous_j_nspi ra- 
tions of  the  Sacraments?  Of  a  truth  human  joy 
is  a  beautiful  thing,  a  very  worship  of  the  Creator. 
Out  of  himself  there  is  no  beaut}*  like  it,  unless  it 
be  the  jubilee  of  angels.  But  the  joys  which  the 
Sacraments  have  sanctified,  and,  si  ill  more,  the 
joys  which  the  Sacraments  have  gendered,  who 
can  tell  how  sweet  they  are  to  the  complacency 
of  our  heavenly  Father? 

It  is  to  be  thought  of,  also,  how  the  Sacraments 
embrace   and  compass   human    life  in  their  mys- 


THE    EMPIRE    OF   THE   TRECIOUS   BLOOl*.        153 

teriou?  number  seven.  Man's  life  is  a  pathetic 
thing.  There  is  no  dulness  in  any  biography  of 
earth.  Each  life  lias  many  turns.  Within  the 
soul  common  vicissitudes  are  not  without  romance. 
Supernatural  things  greatly  increase  the  romance 
of  life.  Even  calmness  and  uniformity  are  liko 
sunset  skies,  full  of  noiseless  plays  of  .light,  and 
scarce  perceptible  Bhiftings  of  gold-red  clouds, 
which  change  the  splendor  we  know  not  how. 
Yet  is  there  in  all  human  lives  a  like  recurrence 
of  like  vicissitudes.  It  is  this  which  blends  them 
into  one,  although  they  are  so  various.  It  is  like 
the  burden  of  the  song,  which  chimes  in  with 
equal  fitness  whether  the  verse  be  one  of  gladness 
or  of  sorrow.  The  things  that  are  common  to  all 
men  are  more  touching  than  those  which  happen 
only  to  some.  They  are  fountains  of  deeper  feel- 
ing. They  arc  more  touching  because  they  are 
more  natural.  They  are  diviner  visitations,  be- 
cause they  are  more  general.  It  is  these  things 
upon  which  the  Sacraments  fasten  with  their  in- 
stincts of  love.  The  times,  the  vocations,  the 
states,  the  crises  of  human  life,  these  are  all 
clasped  together  by  the  seven-fold  band  of  Sacra- 
ments. If  we  think  of  all  these  things,  we  shall 
own  that  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  their 
mere  existence  makes  all  creation  different  from 
what  it  would  have  been  without  them. 

But  who  can  speak  worthily  of  the  Sacraments? 
The  Eucharist  gives  us  a  measure  of  their  grandeur; 
and  is  it  not  an  immeasurable  measure?  Would 
that  men  would  study  more  the  science  of  the 
Sacraments!  Devotion  would  be  greatly  increased 
thereby.      The   peculiar   hatred,  with  which   the 


154         THE    EMPIRE    OF   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

author  of  heresy  pursues  what  may  he  called  tho 
sacramental  principle  in  our  holy  faith,  is  a  token 
to  us  of  the  stress  -which  we  ourselves  ought  to 
lay  upon  it.  Hardly  anywhere  is  theology  more 
deep  than  in  the  matter  of  the  Sacraments.  They 
give  us  more  intimate  glimpses  of  God  than  almost 
any  thing  else,  and  especially  of  the  ways  of  God, 
those  ways  hy  which  we  seem  to  know  him,  to 
recognise  him,  and  to  realize  him.  We  should 
know  much  less  of  the  capabilities  of  human 
actions,  their  limit  and  their  reach,  the  point  at 
which  grace  is  grafted  on  them,  and  their  com- 
portment under  the  pressure  of  divine  things,  if 
it  were  not  for  our  knowledge  of  the  Sacraments. 
That  human  actions  can  be  the  matter  of  a  Sacra- 
ment is  surely  a  truth  full  of  philosophical  import 
as  well  as  of  theological  significance.  The  union 
of  freedom  with  sustaining  and  impelling  grace, — 
where  is  it  so  marvellously  illustrated  as  in  a 
Sacrament? 

Moreover,  a  devotion  to  the  Sacraments  is  very 
needful  for  the  times  in  which  we  live.  The 
spirit  of  the  age  must  necessarily  affect  both  our 
theology  and  our  asceticism.  Under  its  depress- 
ing constraints  we  shall  be  tempted  to  sacrifice 
the  supernatural  to  the  natural,  the  passive  to  the 
active,  and  the  infused  to  the  acquired.  Theology 
will  be  allured  to  merge  into  metaphysics.  Devo- 
tion will  be  considered  a  vocation,  priests  a  caste, 
and  theology  a  private  professional  training.  The 
substance  of  the  old  Condemned  Propositions 
about  spiritual  direction  will  be  adroitly  renewed. 
Men  will  sneer  at  perfection  in  the  world.  Edu- 
cation will   be  bidden  to  throw  off  what  it  will  bo 


TIT1C    EMI'IUE   OF   THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD.         155 

(d tight  to  consider  the  last  relics  of  its  monastic 
trammels.  Men  will  chafe  at  the  condemnation  of 
books,  and  indeed  at  all  acts  of  intellectual  au- 
thority on  the  part  of  the  Church.  The  study 
of  dogmatics  -will  be  discouraged.  The  whole 
theory  of  Condemned  Propositions  will  he  dis- 
liked. A  discontent  with  the  existing  Church,  or 
at  least  a  want  of  cordial  forward  sympathy  with 
it,  will  grow  up,  while  the  wickedness  of  "  tho 
respectful  silence"  of  Jansenism  will  be  renewed. 
The  sovereignty  of  the  Church,  the  pope's  tem- 
poral power,  and  the  hallowed  truths  enshrined 
in  canon  law,  will  provoke  impatience  as  obstinate 
things  which  will  not  die  although  their  hour  of 
death  has  come.  The  mystical  side  of  the  Gospel 
will  become  more  distasteful  while  it  grows  less 
intelligible.  Heroism  will  have  to  rank  lower 
than  the  ordinary  attainments  of  conscientious 
piety.  The  privileges  of  the  Church  will  be  less 
esteemed,  and  heresy  less  hated.  The  Sacraments 
will  count  almost  for  nothing  in  a  man's  system. 
The  influence  of  the  Incarnation  will  be  far  less 
recognised  and  acknowledged  in  the  world;  and 
a  modern  mixture  of  Judaism  and  Pelagianism 
will  take  possession  of  many  minds,  to  the  grievous 
disadvantage  of  Christian  perfection.  Such  is  the 
spirit  which  will  try  to  waylay  souls  on  their  road 
to  Calvary  or  to  Thabor.  Such  was  not  the  tem- 
per or  genius  of  the  saints.  Such,  by  the  blessing 
of  God,  will  not  be  ours,  if  we  foster  in  ourselves 
a  deep,  a  tender,  and  an  intelligent  devotion  to 
the  Sacraments.  I  repeat,  as  I  said  before,  that, 
in  an  ascetical  point  of  view,  I  hardly  know  any 
thing  upon  which   1   should  lay  greater  stress  in 


15G  THE   EMPIRE    OF    THE   TOECIOUS   BLOOD. 

these  days,  than  a  fervent  devotion  to  tho  Sa- 
craments. 

Now,  these  Sacraments  are  simply  the  machinery 
of  the  Precious  Blood.  They  arc  the  means  by 
which  it  first  conquers,  and  then  keeps  what  it 
lias  conquered.  They  are,  under  ordinary  circum- 
stances, the  conduits  by  which  it  is  conveyed  to 
the  souls  for  whom  it  was  shed.  They  are  God's 
system  for  dispensing  it.  We  should  have  not 
only  an  inadequate  but  an  absolutely  wrong  no- 
tion of  the  empire  of  the  Precious  Blood,  if  wo 
did  not  see  it  as  working  and  circulating  through 

o  or? 

the  Sacraments.  They  are  the  grand  features  of 
its  Empire.  TThey  are  its  method  of  government, 
which  expresses  its  character  and  suits  its  disposi- 
tion. It  is  the  Sacraments  which  hinder  it  from 
being  a  past  historical  expiation  for  sin.  By  them 
it  is  always  truly  flowing  in  the  Church.  Nay, 
by  them  it  is  forever  being  shed  afresh  within  the 
Church.  Possibly,  there  might  have  been  Sacra- 
ments even  if  man  had  needed  no  redemption. 
But  it  seems  as  if  there  would  hardly  have  been 
Sacraments  if  there  had  been  no  Incarnation.  The 
Sacraments,  Avhile  they  express  a  most  wonderful 
part  of  the  Divine  Mind,  seem  also  to  imply  the  Pre- 
cious Blood.  They  might  have  carried  the  glorious 
life  of  the  Incarnate  Word  into  the  lives  of  his  fel- 
low-men in  mysterious  comminglings  and  engraft- 
ings,  even  if  there  had  been  no  fall.  But,  if  there 
had  been  no  Precious  Blood,  we  cannot  conceive  of 
the  Sacraments.  The  nuptials  of  matter  and  spirit 
might  have  been  celebrated  in  other  ways,  yet  not 
in  these  particular  ways  which  now  make  up  our 
idea  of  Sacramen  s.     Anyhow,  according    to  tho 


THE    EMPIRE   OF   THE   TRECIOUS    Bl-GOD.         151 

economy  of  redemption,  the  Sacraments  form  tho 
system  by  which  the  Precious  Blood  traverses  the 
whole  Church,  gifts  it  with  unity,  ami  informs  it 
with  supernatural  energy  and  life.  We  cannot, 
even  in  thought,  disjoin  the  Sacraments  from  the 
Precious  Blood,  or  the  Precious  Blood  from  the 
Sacraments,  without  changing  in  our  minds  the 
order  and  establishment  of  God. 

But  we  have  not  spoken  sufficiently  of  the  vast- 
ness  of  the  empire  of  the  Precious  Blood.  Let  us 
look  for  a  moment  at  its  extremes.  On  the  one 
hand,  it  includes  the  first-fruits  of  creation,  and 
on  the  other  hand,  the  refuse  of  creation.  The 
first-fruits  of  creation  are  those  flowers  whom  our 
Lord  gathers  in  the  pure  fragrance  of  their  first 
blooming.  They  are  the  souls  of  infants,  in  whom 
as  yet  reason  has  not  dawned,  but  whom  the 
water  of  Baptism,  our  Savior's  Precious  Blood, 
has  justified  and  crowned.  These  are  the  suc- 
cessors of  the  Holy  Innocents,  those  first  Chris- 
tians who,  baptized  in  blood,  went  to  adorn  with 
their  infancy  the  Church  Triumphant,  first  in 
Abraham's  Bosom,  and  then  in  the  heaven  of 
heavens, — the  first  martyrs,  whose  blood  was  at 
once  the  prophecy  and  the  prey  of  tho  Precious 
Blood  of  Jesus,  which  had  already  preluded  it3 
shedding  in  the  mystery  of  the  Circumcision. 
Those,  who  form  the  refuse  of  creation,  are  they 
whom  God  has  east  off  forever.  They  lie  in 
outer  darkness.  Their  exile  is  eternal.  "Yet 
even  there  we  find  the  energy  of  the  Precious 
Blood.  Inconceivable  as  are  the  severities  of  hell, 
they  are  less  than  rigorous  justice  would  exact. 
They  are   so,  precisely   because  of  the   Precious 

1+ 


158         THE    EMPIRE    OF   THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

Blood.  Before  the  days  of  Peter  Lombard  the 
generality  of  theologians  held  that,  as  time  went 
on,  there  were  some  mitigations  of  the  fierce 
punishments  of  hell.  They  sunk  after  a  while 
to  a  lower  level.  There  were  expiations  which 
were  only  temporal  and  not  eternal.  There  were 
condonations  within  certain  limits.  Peter  Lom- 
bard, as  St.  Thomas  himself  says,  innovated  upon 
this  teaching,  and  St.  Thomas  followed  in  his 
steps.  In  recent  times  Emery  of  St.  Sulpice 
revived  the  older  traditions,  but  without  making 
much  impression  upon  the  schools.  Suffice  it  to 
say  that,  if,  independent  of  all  hell  being  below 
the  rigor  of  justice  because  of  the  Precious  Blood, 
there  were  any  such  mitigations  as  the  elder  theo- 
logians believed,  they  also  came  without  a  doubt 
from  the  empire  of  the  Precious  Blood.  To  it 
alone  can  they  be  due,  if  they  exist  at  all. 

There  are  saints  in  heaven.  They  are  the 
heights  of  the  Church  of  Christ.  There  are  newly- 
converted  sinners  upon  earth.  These  are  the  low- 
est depths  in  the  happy  land  of  redeeming  grace. 
But  the  light  upon  those  mountain-tops  is  the 
glory  of  the  Precious  Blood,  and  the  sunshine  in 
those  valleys  is  the  kindness  of  the  selfsame  Blood. 
There  are  sufferers  in  purgatory,  dwelling  in  a 
mysterious  region  of  pain  and  quietude,  of  patience 
and  of  love.  They  live  beneath  the  earth,  yet  are 
upon  their  road  to  heaven.  Their  land  is  vast  and 
populous.  It  is  a  territory  wTon  from  hell  by  the 
Precious  Blood,  and  its  pains  made  uneternal.  It 
is  a  detention,  not  an  exile, — a  detention  which  is 
a  marvellous  artifice  of  mercy,  one  of  the  many 
compassionate    devices   of    the    Precious    Blood 


IllK   EMPIRE    OF   THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.         1 50 

There  arc  sufferings  on  earth,  sufferings  by  which 
hearts  are  cleansed,  sins  swiftly  expiated,  merits 
rapidly  accumulated  :  sufferings  in  which  grace 
comes,  sufferings  which  arc  likenesses  of  Jesus, 
Bufferings  which  are  secret  loves  of  God.  These 
earthly  sufferings  also  the  Precious  Blood  alle- 
viates, illuminates,  sanctifies,  crowns,  glorifies,  and 
knows  how  to  render  so  delectable  that  they  who 
have  drunk  deep  of  the  Precious  Blood  get  a 
strange  new  nature,  and  thirst  for  more  suffering 
still.  Thus  botli  these  extremities  of  suffering, 
beneath  the  earth  and  on  it,  belong  to  the  em- 
pire of  the  Precious  Blood.  If  we  look  outside 
ourselres,  we  see  everywhere  the  empire  of  the 
Precious  Blood  stretching  away  in  interminable 
vista.  The  whole  Church  is  its  legitimate  in- 
heritanee.  Her  jurisdiction  is  the  law  and  order 
of  the  Precious  Blood.  The  priesthood  is  its  army 
of  officials.  The  catholic  hierarchy  is  its  venerable 
administration.  The  loft}-  tiara,  that  most  sove- 
reign thing  on  earth,  gleams  with  it  like  the  polar 
star  of  nations.  The  Blessed  Sacrament,  multiplied 
a  hundred  thousand  times,  is  its  own  adorable  self, 
its  Heart-fountain,  and  its  Five  Free  Wells,  wor- 
shipful in  its  union  with  the  Godhead,  the  beautiful 
amazing  Created  Life  of  the  Uncreated  Word.  Jf 
we  lx>k  within  ourselves,  there  is  still  the  self- 
same empire  of  the  Precious  Blood.  There  is  the 
chars  cter  of  Baptism,  its  still  inexhausted  grace,  its 
titles  unforfeited  or  re-conferred,  its  infused  habits, 
its  heroic  Spirit-gifts.  There  are  the  footprints 
of  so  many  Absolutions,  the  abiding  fragrance  of 
such  reiterated  Communions,  perhaps  the  character 
of  Order  and  itsTearful  powers,  perhaps  the  myste- 


I  GO         THE    EMPIRE   OF   THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

rious  traces  of  Extreme  Unction,  certainly  the 
signet  of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  Confirmation,  and  name- 
less graces,  nameless  vestiges  where  Divine  Feel 
have  gone,  and  where  Divine  Virtue  still  resides.! 
There  also  is  that  most  innermost  sanctuary  of  the 
soul,  which  so  few  reach  on  this  side  of  the  grave, 
the  secret  cabinet  where  the  II<»!y  Trinity  dwells 
Dlessedly,  in  the  very  centre  of  our  nature,  up  from 
whose  secret  recesses  joys  shall  one  day  break  and 
flow,  such  as  we  never  dreamed  of,  such  as  would 
look  to  us  now  far  beyond  the  possibilities  of  our 
nature.  All  this,  outside  us  or  within  us,  is  the 
empire  of  the  Precious  Blood. 

But  it  is  only  in  heaven  that  its  supremacy  is 
tranquil  and  complete.  We  must  mount  thither  in 
spirit,  where  we  hope  one  day  to  mount  in  all  the 
jubilee  of  an  incredible  reality,  if  we  would  see  in 
its  full  grandeur  the  royalty  of  the  Precious  Blond. 
Countless  saints  are  there,  various  in  the  splendors 
of  their  holiness.  They  are  all  kings  now.  who 
once  were  serfs,  but  were  redeemed  by  the  Preen  his 
Blood.  The}'  are  the  children  of  many  generations, 
the  natives  of  many  lands.  They  were  of  all  degrees 
on  earth,  and  in  their  fortunes  the  diversit}"  was 
endless.  But  they  were  all  bought  by  the  same 
Blood,  and  all  own  the  lordship  of  that  Blood  in 
heaven.  When  they  sing  their  songs  of  praise, 
son^s  of  a  human  sweetness  which  the  angels 
greatly  love,  they  sing  of  the  Lamb  slain  and  of 
the  triumphs  of  his  Blood.  When  their  potent 
intercessions  win  hourly  graces  for  their  clients 
who  are  still  struggling  upon  earth,  it  is  their 
desire  to  spread  the  empire  of  the  Precious  Blood, 
which    throws    such     loyal    intensity    into    theii 


THE   EMPIRE    OF    THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD.         161 

]>r:i v<ts.     Shall  they  forgei  their  Ransom,  whose 
freedom  is  their  endless  joy? 

Cast  your  eye  over  that  outspread  ocean,  whose 
shores  lie  so  faintly  and  far  off  in   the  almost  in- 
finite   distance.      It   gleams    like    restless    silver, 
quivering  with  one  life  and  yet  such  multitudinous 
life.     It  flashes  in  the  light  with  intolerable  mag- 
nificence.     Its  unity   is    numberless.      Its  life  is 
purest  light.     Into  the  bosom  of  its  vastness  the 
glory  of   God   shines  down,  and  the  universe  is 
illuminated  with  its  refulgence.     It  is  an  ocean  of 
life.      Who  can   count  the  sum  of  being  that  is 
there?     "Who  but  God  can  fathom  its  unsearchable 
caverns?     What  created  eye  but  is  dazzled  with 
the  blazing  splendor  of  its  capacious  surface?     It 
breaks  upon  its  shores  in  mighty  waves;  and  yet 
there    is    no    sound.      Grand    storms  of   voiceless 
praise   hang   over   it   forever,    storms  of  ecstatic 
lightning  without  any  roll  of  thunder,  whose  very 
silence  thrills  the  souls  of  the  human   saints,  and 
is  one  of  their  celestial  joys, — that  deep  stillness  of 
unsounding  worship.     This  is  the  world  of  angels. 
There  too  the  Precious  Blood  reigns  supreme.    The 
angels  have  needed  no  ransom.   Amid  their  almost 
countless  graces  there  is  no  redeeming  grace.    But 
there  is  not  a  grace  in  all  that  sea  of  grace  which 
was  not  merited  for  them  by  the  Precious  Blood. 
They  too  owe  all  they  are,  and  all  they  have,  to 
its  blissful  royalty.     They  too  sing  anthems  in  its 
praise,  though  not  the  same  anthems  as  the  Re- 
deemed.    Jesus  is  Head  of  Angels  as  well  as  men; 
and  it  is  as  Man  that  he  is  Head  of  angels.     Thus 
the  whole  of  that  marvellous  world  of  glorious 
intelligence,   profound   gladness,  gigantic   power, 
L  n* 


162         THE    EMPIRE   01"   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

and  beautiful  holiness,  is  a  province  of  the  empire 
of  the  Precious  Blood. 

Who  can  doubt  its  sweet  constraints  over  the  im- 
maculate heart  of  Mary?  She  is  queen  of  heaven 
and  earth.  Far  and  wide  her  empire  stretches.  Its 
boundaries  are  scarce  distinguishable  from  those 
of  the  Precious  Blood  itself:  so  closely  and  so 
peacefully  do  the  two  sovereignties  intertwine. 
Mary  holds  sway  over  the  Precious  Blood.  It 
does  her  bidding,  and  she  commands  with  a  mo- 
ther's right.  Yet  she  too  is  a  subject  of  the  Pre- 
cious Blood,  and  1'ejoices  in  her  subjection.  Out 
of  her  very  heart  that  Blood  first  came;  and  out 
of  that  Blood  came  also  her  Immaculate  Concep- 
tion. It  was  the  very  office  of  her  Divine  Ma- 
ternity to  minister  that  Blood;  and  it  was  that 
Blood  which  from  all  eternity  had  merited  for  her 
the  Divine  Maternity.  It  was  the  Precious  Blood 
which  made  her  sutler;  but  it  was  the  Precious 
Blood  also  which  turned  her  suffering  into  ditjni- 
ties  and  crowns.  She  owes  all  to  the  Precious 
Blood,  to  whom  the  Precious  Blood  owes  its  very 
self.  Yet  the  river  is  greater  than  its  fountain. 
The  Precious  Blood  is  greater  than  Mary;  nay,  it 
is  greater  by  a  whole  infinity,  because  the  waters 
of  the  Godhead  have  assumed  its  uncommingled 
stream  unto  themselves.  Mary  sits  upon  her 
throne  to  magnify  the  Precious  Blood.  Her 
power  is  used  for  the  propagation  of  its  empire. 
Her  prayers  dispense  its  grace.  Her  holiness, 
which  enchants  all  heaven,  is  the  monument  and 
trophy  of  that  victorious  Blood. 

Shall  it  rule  also  over  the  Divine  Perfections? 
Behold  that  inexorable  justice,  which  an  infinite 


THE    EMPIRE    OF   THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD.         163 

holiness  stands  by  as  assessor!  Can  endless  worlds 
of  mere  creatures  satisfy  those  claims,  or  appease 
that  adorable  wrath?  Yet  the  Precious  Blood 
has  done  it.  A  mercy  that  is  limitless,  and  a  jus- 
tice that  is  insatiable, — will  not  sin  set  theso 
attributes  at  strife?  Who  shall  be  peace-maker  in 
such  unspeakable  debate?  The  Precious  Blood! 
Justice  and  mercy  have  met  together,  and  have 
kissed  each  other  in  the  Precious  Blood.  How 
shall  the  decrees  of  the  Creator  comport  with  the 
continued  liberty  of  the  fallen  creature?  The 
Precious  Blood,  heavenliest  of  inventions !  has 
found  out  a  way.  The  unchangeableness  of  God 
shall  condescend  to  wait  upon  the  mutabilities  of 
the  fickle  creature,  and  yet  its  own  repose  be  all 
the  more  glorified  the  while;  for  this  too  shall  be 
one  of  the  secrets  of  the  Precious  Blood.  If  greater 
good  comes  out  of  evil,  it  is  through  the  alchemy 
of  the  Precious  Blood.  If  all  the  Divine  Perfec- 
tions combine  in  some  resplendent  work  of  the 
Most  Holy  Trinity,  whether  it  be  Creation,  Be- 
demption,  or  the  Blessed  Sacrament,  it  is  the  Pre- 
cious Blood  in  which  the  combination  has  been 
made,  and  which  the  attributes  of  God  delight  to 
magnify",  while  it  with  its  adoring  ministries  is 
magnifying  them.  If  any  of  the  Divine  Perfec- 
tions will  come  down  from  heaven,  and  walk 
amidst  the  nations  of  men,  and  give  light  and 
scatter  peace  and  healing  as  it  goes,  it  first  puts 
on  the  vesture  of  the  Precious  Blood,  in  order  that 
it  may  not  slay  but  make  alive.  Justice  is  occupied 
in  crowning  saints.  Merc}'  is  forever  traversing 
its  empire  as  if  in  pure  delight  at  its  immensity. 
Holiness  is  adorning  its  infinite  purity   Trith  the 


1GI  THE    EMPIRE    OF   THE   TRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

little  sanctities  of  feeble  and  imperfect  souls.  Im- 
mutability is  hourly  adapting  itself  to  the  change- 
ful needs  of  innumerable  hearts.  Omnipotence  is 
putting-  itself  at  the  disposal  of  created  weakness, 
as  if  it  were  some  generous  beast  of  burden  serving 
a  master  whom  it  could  so  easily  destroy.  Eternity 
is  busy  commuting  time  into  itself.  Love  changes 
its  eternal  name,  and  only  calls  itself  by  the  name 
of  the  Precious  Blood.  All  these  marvels  belong 
to  the  empire  of  the  Blood  of  Jesus.  The  peace 
of  God  is  all  activity  to  do  the  work  of  that  dear 
Blood.  The  self-sufficiency  of  God  is  toiling  as  if 
nothing  could  suffice  it,  except  the  salvation  of  its 
creatures.  All  this  is  the  sovereignty  of  the  Pre- 
cious Blood.  Nay,  the  dread  sovereignty  of  the 
Everlasting  King  seems  to  be  forever  passing  into 
the  created  Kingship  of  the  Precious  Blood. 

Inside  the  Unity  of  God,  within  the  life  of  the 
Threefold  Majesty,  even  there  we  find  the  tokens 
of  the  Precious  Blood;  even  there  it  seems  to  rule. 
The  Son,  who  has  assumed  it,  owns  the  gladness 
of  its  love.  The  Holy  Ghost,  who  fashioned  it  at 
first,  and  now  works  with  it  his  sanctifying  work, 
broods  dovelike  with  complacency  upon  its  dee] is. 
The  Eternal  Father  chose  it  as  the  one  thing  to 
appease  him;  for  he  too  owns  the  mastery  of  its 
exceeding  beauty.  It  seems,  if  with  becoming 
reverence  we  may  say  so,  to  have  widened  his 
Fatherhood.  It  has  added  fresh  treasures  to  those 
inexhaustible  treasures  which  he  had  in  his  Eternal 
Son.  But  these  are  thoughts  for  silence  rather 
than  for  words.  May  his  infinite  Majesty  pardon 
the  freedoms  which  the  ignorance  of  our  love  has 
been  taking  with  his  perfections!     It  is  of  his  own 


THE    EMriRE    OF   TI1E   PRECIOUS    BLOOD.        1G5 

goodness  that  we  cannot  help  loving,  even  while 
we  tremble. 

There  is  one  corner  of  creation,  where  the  empire 
of  the  Precious  Blood  is  not  what  we  would  have 
it  be.  It  is  our  own  hearts.  Yet  is  it  not  our  ono 
work  to  subject  ourselves  to  it  in  all  things?  We 
desire  to  have  no  instincts,  but  the  instincts  of  the 
Precious  Blood.  We  wish  to  esteem  nothing,  but 
as  the  Precious  Bloud  esteems  it.  It  desires  no- 
thing so  much  as  to  be  loved.  We  desire  nothing 
so  much  as  to  love  it.  Why  then  is  it  that  our 
weakness  and  our  want  of  courage  so  sadly  keep 
our  grace  in  check?  Alas!  we  are  inverting  the 
right  order  of  things.  We  are  ruling  the  Precious 
Blood  by  limiting  its  empire.  It  longs  to  rule  over 
us;  it  longs  with  a  masterful  sweetness.  The  day 
shall  come,  when  its  longing  shall  be  satisfied. 
.Neither  shall  it  be  a  distant  day.  For  we  will 
begin  this  very  day  to  love  and  serve  our  dearest 
Lord  as  we  have  never  loved  and  served  him 
heretofore.  Always  and  in  all  things  shall  his 
Blood  rule  and  guide  us.  Its  rule  is  blessedness 
even  upon  earth.  It  shall  rule,  not  our  spiritual 
life  onby,  but  all  our  temporal  circumstances.  It 
shall  ride  our  love  of  those  we  love,  and  it  shall 
make  our  love  of  them  a  doing  to  them  spiritual 
good.  IIow  shall  we  die  unless  at  that  moment 
the  Precious  Blood  is  reigning  in  our  hearts?  If 
it  rules  us  not  then,  we  are  lost  forever.  But  how 
shall  we  better  secure  its  empire  at  our  deaths, 
than  by  establishing  it  over  our  lives?  The  past 
will  not  do.  Jesus  must  be  more  victorious  in  our 
souls,  more  a  conqueror,  and  more  a  king.  Oh 
that  the  Precious  Blood  might  so  work  in   our 


100         THE   EMIGRE    OF   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD 

hearts  that  life  should  seem  to  have  only  one  pos- 
sible gladness,  the  gladness  of  having  Jesus  to 
reign  over  us  as  King!  Oh  Grace!  Grace!  would 
that  we  were  altogether  conquered!  But  we  will 
be  of  good  cheer;  for  the  time  is  coming  when  we 
shall  be  completely  and  eternally  vanquished  by 
victorious  lovo. 


TOE    IIISTORV   0-"    1^    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.        1G7 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE    HISTORY   OF    THE    PRECIOUS    bLO'»D. 

WnY  is  it  so  hard  to  be  at  peace  in  life  ?     Why 
do  little  things,  and  such  very  little  things,  trouble 
us?     We  came  forth  from  God,  who  is  the  father 
of  peace  :  why  then  are  we  so  restless  ?     We  are 
but  winging  our  flight  over  this  narrow  gulf  of 
time,  and  the  great  eternity  is  already  in   sight  - 
why  are  we  so  full  of  volatile  distractions?    Ever 
in  our  flight  God  still  holds  us  in  his  Hand:  why 
then  do  we  flutter  so  ?     It  is  strange  we  cannot  lie 
still  even  in  the  Hand  of  God.     It  is  because  our 
minds   are  at  once  so  active  and   so  wandering 
They  need  continual  occupation.     They  require  t( 
be  fed  incessantly  with   images,  which  they'  con 
Bume  rapidly,  and  are  insatiable.     It  is  this  which 
makes  a  contemplative  life  so  difficult.     It  is  thie 
need  of  images.     Our  minds  are  restless  if  they  dr 
not  see  a  thousand  varying  objects  before  them  ir 
constant  motion,  with  light  and  color  upon  them 
They  are  fatigued  with  stillness.    They  pine  whei 
they  are  kept  to  one  thought,  to  one  object.  Thej 
sicken  even  of  one  range  of  thought,  one  class  of 
objects.     The  weary  sea  with  its  monotonous  cla.sl 
of  waves  is  not  more  restless  or  more  mobile  thai\ 
our  minds.     Here  is  the  grand  difficulty  of  prayer 
the  fixing  of  our  minds  on  the  object  of  our  wor- 
ship.    Most  of  the  things  which  are  hard  in   the 


1G8        THE    HISTORY    OF   THE   PRECIOUS   BIi037i 

spiritual  life,  are  hard  because  of  the  unity,  the 
simplicity,  the  concentration  of  mind,  which  they 
require  or  imply.  The  chief  power  of  the  world 
over  us  arises  from  our  having  given  it  possession 
of  our  minds.  It  would  be  a  much  less  difficult 
task  to  dislodge  it  from  our  hearts,  if  we  could  only 
once  expel  its  images  from  our  minds.  Satan's 
power  over  the  heart  comes  from  his  power  over 
the  mind.  Here  then  is  the  universal  work  jf 
everybody's  spiritual  life,  either  the  getting  rid  of 
images  or  the  changing  of  them. 

Now,  the  first  of  these  processes  is  a  very  diffi- 
cult one,  and  belongs  to  a  high  region  of  the  spi- 
ritual state,  with  which  we  have  nothing  whatever 
to  do  just  now.  The  second,  the  changing  of  our 
images,  is  more  within  our  reach.  In  fact,  we 
must  absolutely  reach  it,  if  we  arc  to  be  devout  at 
all.  Our  hearts  will  be  what  our  minds  areT-  If 
our  minds  are  full  of  images  of  the  world,  we  shall 
never  be  weaned  from  the  world.  If  they  are  full 
of  images  of  self,  we  shall  never  conquer  our  self- 
love.  If  our  minds  will  never  rest,  unless  endless 
processions  are  forever  winding  their  way  across 
them,  then  let  us  have  our  processions  religious; 
let  our  images  be  of  God,  of  Jesus,  of  Mar}*,  and 
of  heavenly  things.  I  do  not  sa}~  this  is  altogether 
easy  to  do-  but  it  is  comparatively  easy;  and  more- 
over it  must  be  done.  Let  me  refer  to  childish 
things  for  our  example.  When  sleep  was  coy  and 
would  not  visit  us,  when  the  pains,  or  the  sorrows, 
or  the  excitements  of  childhood  banished  slumber 
from  our  eyes,  they  used  to  tell  us,  at  least  among 
the  hills  of  the  north,  to  make  a  picture  in  our 
minds,  and  to  count  the  very  white  sheep  as  they 


THE    TIISTORY    OF   THE    TRECIOUS   BLOOD.        1G9 

passed  across  the  very  green  slope  of  the  mountain- 
side: and  so  of  a  truth  sleep  was  often  won;  and 
the  opiate  at  least  was  innocent.     In  later  years, 
when   the  sense  of  pain   was   keeping   the    mind 
awake,  sleep  has  been  wooed   after  a  somewhat 
similar  fashion.    We  filled  our  minds  with  images; 
onl}',  books  and  travels  made  them  of  a  more  am- 
bitious and  complicated  sort.     We  bent  our  minds 
on  placid  objects  such  as  we  knew  to  be  somewhere 
on  earth  that  night.     We  looked  down  the  golden 
green  vistas  of  tropical  forests,   or  on  the  calm 
shores  of  very  solitary  shining  seas,  or  on  the  per- 
fumed shrubby  tangles  of  islets  in  the  ocean,  or  on 
some  dusky  glen  which  a  cataract  fills  with  silence 
by  deadening  all  other  sounds  except  its  own :  and  so 
also  sleep  has  come.  It  were  better  to  have  thought 
of  God,  and  so  have  rested.     Still  we  may  learn  a 
lesson  from  our  success.     It  is  even  so  with  the 
restlessness  and  perturbation  of  our  minds  in  the 
spiritual    life.      If  we  will    shut  our  eyes  to  the 
world,  and  make  pictures  ofheavenly  things,  and 
watch   the   Thirty-Three  Years  of  Jesus,  or  the 
Mysteries  of  Mary,  or  the  flights  of  angels,  or  the 
panoramas  of  the  Four  Last  Things,  or  the  figura- 
tive pageants  of  the  Divine  Perfections,  pass  stu- 
diousfybefore  our  inward  sight,  then  that  sweet, 
facile,   rapid,   undistracted   prayer,  which   is   the 
soul's  sleep,  the  soul's  renewal  of  its  vigor,  will 
soon  come  to  us.     An  oblivion  of  the  world,  less 
and  less  disturbed  by  dreams,  will  steal  over  us, 
and  we  shall  taste  the  gift  of  peace. 

This  is  not  the  highest  of  spiritual  ways  ;  I  know 
it  well.  Yet  is  the  highest  one  fittest  for  }-ou  and 
me  ?     Are  wo  yet  in  such  a  state  that  we  should 

15 


170     Tnrc  nrsTORY  of  the  precious  blood. 

strive  to  banish  all  images  from  our  minds,  and 
think  only  of  the  indistinct  and  formless  majesty 
of  God  ?  We  know  not  what  God  may  do  with  us 
in  time.  One  thing,  by  his  help,  we  have  resolved 
upon.  It  is  that  we  will  not  stand  still,  neither 
will  we  be  contented  with  any  grace,  with  any 
degree  of  love.  All  life  long  we  will  advance. 
Daily  will  we  climb  higher.  Constantly  will  we 
trim  the  fires  of  our  love,  and  make  them  burn 
more  ardently.  We  know  not,  therefore,  what  God 
may  do  with  us  in  times  to  come.  But  for  the  pre- 
sent we  must  endeavor  to  cast  one  set  of  images 
out  of  our  minds  by  introducing  another  set.  So 
shall  we  fill  our  minds  with  God  continualh",  and 
be  delivered  from  the  burden  of  self  and  from  the 
thraldom  of  the  world. 

Our  present  task,  then,  is  to  marshal  a  Proces- 
sion of  the  Precious  Blood,  with  all  its  various  yet 
kindred  images,  through  our  minds.  It  shall  be  to 
us  like  the  defiling  of  soldiers  over  the  mountain- 
passes.  The  bravery  of  war  shall  add  to  the  beauty 
of  the  scenery,  and  the  scenery  shall  set  off  tho 
bravery  of  war.  Par  off  we  shall  see  the  glitter- 
ing pomp,  and  then  again  so  near  that  the  martial 
music  shall  strike  upon  our  cars.  Here  the  light 
shall  fall  upon  it  in  all  its  beautiful  array,  and 
there  the  clouds  shall  obscure  its  path,  and  tho 
crags  appear  to  swallow  up  the  pageant.  Much 
we  may  sec  which  we  cannot  understand ;  but 
much  also  which  we  can  both  understand  and  love. 
From  first  to  last  it  all  tells  of  Jesus.  From  first 
to  last  it  is  a  thing  of  God.  Nay,  we  must  not  bo 
strange  to  it  ourselves.  We  too  must  fall  in  with 
the  Procession.     AVc  must  climb  with  it;  as  part 


THE    HISTORY    OF   THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.        171 

of  its  life,  its  beaut}T,  and  its  music,  until  wc  are 
lost  to  sight  among  the  cloud-covered  mountains 
of  eternity.  Our  soul  longs  for  rest.  It  would 
fain  seek  some  peaceful  solitude,  where  the  sights 
and  sounds  of  the  world  cannot  intrude.  It  yearns 
to  repose  itself  on  God  in  the  vigilant  sleep  of 
prayer.  How  shall  it  attain  its  end  ?  We  read  in 
the  Book  of  Esther  that,  when  King  Assuerus 
could  not  sleep,  "he  commanded  the  histories  and 
chronicles  of  former  times  to  be  brought  him," 
and  they  read  them  before  him.  So  may  wc  have 
the_Ji]story  and  chronicle  of  the  Precious  Blood 
brought  to  us.  It  will  make  music  in  our  ears, 
like  the  reading  of  a  famous  ancestry  to  the  high- 
born and  the  royal.  It  will  be  a  picture  before 
our  e}-es,  like  a  procession  emerging  out  of  that 
first  dark  eternity  of  God,  winding  over  the  pic- 
turesque inequalities  of  time,  and  re-entering  the 
second  illuminated  eternity  of  God,  up  which  we 
see  in  a  vista  of  confused  gorgeousness,  as  those 
who  look  through  the  doorway  of  some  vast  ca- 
thedral, and  behold  the  banners  waving,  and  the 
masses  of  gold  and  color  all  tinted  with  the  hues 
of  the  painted  windows,  moving  slowly  in  indis- 
tinct progress  to  the  distant  starry  altar.  If  with 
this  pageant  we  can  fill  our  minds,  for  a  time  at 
least  the  hold  of  the  world  upon  us  will  be  loos- 
ened. The  things  of  God  will  interest  our  hearts, 
and  many  acts  of  divine  love  will  flow  from  us,  as 
from  a  fountain.  Let  us  then  turn  aside  from  the 
images  of  earth,  and  rest  a  while,  and  watch  this 
venerable  Procession. 

To  what  shall  wc  dare  to  liken  the  Mind  of  God  ? 
With  what  shapes  of  allegory  shall  we  venture  to 


172       THE    HISTORY    OF   TnE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

clothe  that  infinite  eternal  object,  which  is  the 
fountain  of  all  our  destinies?  To  us  it  looks  like 
some  tremendous  chain  of  mountains,  whose  subli- 
mities are  inaccessible,  whose  heights  arc  hidden 
always  in  the  darkness,  whose  shapes  arc  not  the 
shapes  of  earthly  scenery,  whose  sound  and  silence 
are  alike  terrible,  and  yet  whose  sides  are  always 
clad  in  the  beautiful  repose  of  radiant  light.  But 
it  is  a  chain  of  mountains  which  has  only  one  side, 
one  descent.  None  has  ever  climbed  those  heights, 
nor  ever  shall.  But  we  know  that,  if  they  were 
surmounted,  there  would  be  no  descent  upon  the 
other  side.  A  vast  table-land  stretches  intermi- 
nably there  into  the  boundless  distance,  an  un- 
beginning,  uncreated  land,  of  which  faith  alone, 
itself  a  supernatural  virtue,  can  report;  and  it 
reports  onl}r,  together  with  some  few  tacts,  the 
unchanging  peace  of  awful  sanctity  which  is  the 
life  and  joy  of  God.  That  is  the  land  of  the  Di- 
vine Decrees.  There  is  the  cradle  of  Eternal  Pur- 
poses, which  were  never  younger  than  they  are 
to-day,  and  needed  no  cradle,  because  they  had 
neither  beginning,  growth,  nor  change.  In  the 
trackless  distances  of  that  nameless  upland  have 
we  ourselves  been  hidden  from  all  eternity  :  so 
that,  in  some  sense,  our  nothingness  is  clothed 
in  the  robes  of  God's  eternity.  In  those  untra- 
velled,  unimaginable  plains,  the  Divine  Perfections 
have  been  tranquilly  occupied  with  us  in  unbe- 
ginning  love,  an  unbeginning  love  which  does  the 
work  >  f  everlasting  justice.  In  those  fastnesses, 
round  which  a  glory  of  impenetrable  darkness 
bangs,  lie  the  living  mysteries  of  Predestination, 
of  the  Divine  Permissions,  and  of  that  unnamed 


THE    HISTORY    OF   THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.         173 

perfection  out  of  which  the  gift  of  Freedom  to 
creatures  came.  It  is  a  land  before  whose  misty 
regions  we  bend  our  knees  in  breathless  adoration, 
in  prayer  which  ventures  not  to  clothe  itself  with 
words.  A  sacred  horror  fills  our  souls  as  \vc  think 
of  the  irresponsible  power  which  reigns  there,  of 
the  mightiness  and  the  celerity  of  that  all-absorb- 
ing will,  of  the  resistless  march  of  that  all-devour- 
ing glory,  of  the  unfathomable  abysses  of  that 
incomprehensible  secrecy,  of  the  unswerving  ex- 
actions of  that  appalling  sanctity,  and  of  that 
amazing  plenitude  of  life,  to  which  no  creations 
have  been  able  to  add,  and  which  no  incarnations 
could  intensify.  If  the  mysteries  which  we  know 
to  lie  there  undivulged  arc  so  tremendous,  what 
may  we  not  conceive  of  other  grander  mysteries 
which  arc  simply  unimagined?  Yet  one  thing  we 
know  of  that  pathless  world  of  the  Mind  of  God, 
pathless  because  neither  reason  of  man  nor  intelli- 
gence of  angel  has  ever  Avandered  there,  pathless 
because  God  himself  traverses  it  not  by  any  process 
of  remembrance  or  discourse  but  always  possesses 
it  in  simple  act, — one  thing  we  know  of  it,  and 
cling  to:  it  is,  that  everywhere  its  vastest  soli- 
tudes, its  farthest-withdrawn  recesses,  are  nil 
resplendent  with  the  most  tender  justice,  and 
are  all  beautified  by  the  omnipotence  of  love. 
Nothing  is  small  to  a  God  so  great.  It  is  this 
tlKOUght  which  renders  so  vast  a  majesty,  not 
tolerable  only,  but  so  sweetly  intimate  and  so 
intensely  dear. 

Over  then  those  fertile  deserts,  fruitful  though 
nothing  grows  there,  unpeopled  but  where  all  is 
life,  coming  out  of  the  interminable  dark  distances, 

15* 


174:         THE    HISTORY   OP   THE   I'RECIOUS    BLOOD. 

we  behold  the  Procession  of  the  Precious  Blood 
emerging.  We  could  not  see  its  starting-point,  if 
it  had  had  one.  But  it  never  had.  In  the  Mind 
of  Cod  it  was  an  unbeginning  Procession  of  created 
tilings.  It  went  forth  from  his  power,  and  it  re- 
turns into  his  love.  The  Precious  Blood  is  the 
crowned  king  of  all  his  decrees.  All  other  creation 
sprang  from  it  in  prolific,  multitudinous  diversity, 
and  it  is  forever  fetching  creation  hack  to  the 
Creator.  We  see  it  only  as  it  were  through  daz- 
zling mists.  Yet  it  seems  to  come  with  banners 
flvinff,  whereon  the  names  of  the  Divine  Perfec- 
tions  are  emblazoned.  The  Divine  Decrees  hover 
above  it  like  glorious  clouds,  which  are  dark  from 
their  exceeding  luminousness.  All  the  Types  of 
created  things  appear  to  follow  in  its  train.  On- 
ward it  comes,  so  like  an  uncreated  splendor,  that 
it  is  hard  to  think  it  a  created  thing.  We  kneel 
to  worship,  because  faith,  like  a  herald,  proclaims 
it  as  it  comes,  as  the  Created  Life  of  an  Uncreated 
Person.  Ages  of  epochs  hang  like  shapeless  mists 
about  the  long  Procession,  as  if  there  were  even 
in  eternity  some  divisions  which  would  seem  to  us 
like  time,  or  as  if  eternity  were  thus  striving  to 
make  its  length  and  its  endurance  visible  to  mortal 
eyes.  The  whole  of  that  illimitable  country  is 
somehow  covered  with  the  Precious  Blood.  It  's 
like  the  spirit  of  the  place,  or  at  least  the  atmo- 
sphere which  hinders  its  being  mere  darkness  to 
our  view.  The  light  is  colored  by  it.  The  dark- 
ness is  thickened  by  it.  The  silence  makes  it  felt ; 
and,  if  there  be  any  sound,  it  is  the  sound  of  that 
Blood  lapsing  in  its  channels. 
Now  it  has  reached  the  edge  of  that  boundless 


THE    HISTORY    OF   THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD.       175 

upland.  Now  it  stands  revealed  upon  the  heights. 
which  face  down  upon  creation.  It  passes  from 
the  region  of  bright  bewildering  mists,  mists  which 
bewilder  tbe  more  because  they  are  so  bright;  and 
it  emerges  into  light  amidst  created  things.  Or 
rather,  to  speak  more  truly,  it  comes,  the  Proces- 
sion of  Divine  Decrees,  the  pageant  of  the  Precious 
Blood,  to  that  invisible,  imperceptible  point  in 
eternity,  when  time  should  fittingly  begin.  At 
once  a  whole  universe  of  fairest  light  broke  forth, 
as  if  beneath  the  tread  of  those  Decrees,  as  if  at 
the  touch  of  that  Precious  Blood.  It  was  but  an 
instantaneous  flash,  the  first  visibility  of  the  in- 
visible God;  and  there  lay  outspread  the  broad 
world  of  angels,  throbbing  with  light,  and  teeming 
with  innumerous  and  yet  colossal  life.  The  bright- 
ness that  silvered  them  was  the  reflection  of  the 
Precious  Blood.  From  it  and  because  of  it  they 
came.  Out  of  it  they  drew  their  marvellous  diver- 
sity of  graces.  Their  sanctities  were  but  mantles 
made  of  its  royal  texture.  They  beautified  their 
natures  in  its  supernatural  streams.  It  seemed  as 
if  here  the  Procession  halted  for  a  moment;  or 
perhaps  it  was  only  that  the  sudden  flash  of  light 
looked  like  a  momentary  halt.  The  new  creatures 
of  God,  the  first  created  minds,  the  primal  offspring 
of  the  Uncreated  Mind,  were  bidden  to  fall  in,  and 
accompany  the  great  Procession.  Oh,  it  was  fear- 
ful,— that  first  sight  outside  the  immense  serenity 
of  God!  Then  truly,  too  truly,  there  was  a  halt, 
as  if  homage  and  obedience  were  refused.  There 
is  a  gleam  as  of  intolerable  battle,  and  a  corusca- 
tion of  archangelic  weapons,  and  Michael's  war- 
cry,   echoing,    the   first   created    cry,   among   the 


17G         THE    niSTORY   OF   TI1E   PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

everlasting-  mountains.  A  third  of  that  creation 
of  purest  light  has  refused  to  adore  the  Human 
Blood  of  the  Incarnate  Word,  and  is  flung  speedily 
<nto  the  dread  abyss;  and  the  ranks  close  in,  and 
the  unfallen  light  now  beams  more  resplendently 
with  its  thinned  array  than  ever  it  beamed  before, 
the  fallen  fell;  and  onward  the  Procession  moves. 
To  our  eyes  it  has  a  firmer  footing  when  it 
comes  among  material  things.  It  is  a  material 
thing  itself.  It  has  passed  the  "world  of  angels, 
who  are  now  following  in  its  train.  Suddenly,  on 
its  advance,  or  even  before  it  has  advanced  at  all, 
another  universe  springs  up  to  life,  the  immense 
universe  of  matter.  Perhaps  there  was  hardly 
aii}T  gulf  between  this  creation  and  that  of  spirit. 
But  it  was  a  new  manifestation  of  the  Divine  Per- 
fections. In  some  respects  it  "was  more  wonderful 
than  the  creation  of  spirit,  because  its  product  was 
less  like  any  thing  in  God.  It  was  a  wider  thing 
than  spirit,  and  perhaps  more  various.  It  carried 
God  further  out  of  himself.  It  was  a  longer  reach 
of  his  perfections.  It  was  a  more  unexpected  thing 
than  spirit.  Yet  it  was  in  some  way  older  in  the 
decrees  of  God.  It  was  the  creation  in  which  his 
predilections  lay.  It  was  here  that  he  had  selected 
the  created  nature  which  he  would  assume  to  him- 
self. It  should  be  a  nature  neither  wholly  material 
nor  wholly  spiritual,  but  which  should  bridge  the 
interval  between  the  two.  It  was  a  creation  also 
which  should  be  more  under  the  dominion  of  time. 
It  should  be  left  to  ripen  through  long  epochs  for 
human  habitation.  Material  life  should  be  tried  in 
a  gradually  ascending  scale.  The  laws  of  physical 
nature  should  be  allowed  to  operate  for  long  sue- 


THE    HISTORY   OF   THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD.       177 

cessions  of  periods  upon  tbe  huge  masses  of  matter 
Moreover,  Clod  himself,  by  a  series  of  secondary 
creative  acts,  would  set  in  order  and  adorn  in  a 
sequence  of  six  divine  days  the  matter,  which  in 
one  instant,  without  succession,  he  had  evoked 
from  nothingness.  Moreover,  alongside  the  secular 
mutations  of  matter,  God  would  move  in  a  series 
of  unresting  creative  ads.  Age  after  age,  every 
hour  of  every  day,  would  he  call  up  from  nothing 
beautiful  souls  to  tenant  the  new  bodies  perpetually 
budding  forth  and  growing  upon  the  earth.  So 
that  this  creation  of  matter  was  in  all  respects 
a  very  peculiar  and  notable  creation,  not  to  bo 
thought  meanly  of  because  of  its  manifold  imper- 
fections, but  to  be  deeply  studied  and  reverently 
admired  as  the  locality  and  material  of  the  Incarna- 
tion. It  was  now  to  this  point  that  tbe  Precious 
Blood  had  come,  to  a  world  which  was  as  it  wTere 
its  natural  home.  The  Types  of  created  things, 
which  bad  surrounded  it  from  the  first,  now  sud- 
denly as  if  at  some  divine  command  sj^read  them- 
selves out  in  front.  With  lightning's  speed  they 
flew  in  showers  of  golden  fire  into  the  vast  realms 
of  space  created  to  contain  them.  It  was  like  a 
vast  swarm  of  locusts  gleaming,  now  lonely,  now 
in  troops,  in  the  distinct  blackness  of  space.  Orbs, 
and  pairs  of  orbs,  and  brotherhoods  of  orbs,  and 
hosts  of  brotherhoods  of  orbs,  sprung  oft'  exultingly 
on  their  immense  careers.  It  was  a  scene  that 
looked  to  be  one  of  wild  terrific  power,  of  ruin 
rather  than  of  creation  :  only  that  on  closer  view 
there  was  such  unstriving  peace,  such  harmony 
among  the  unimpeded  crowds  of  worlds,  such  a 
magnificent  gentle  self-confidence  of  order,  that  it 
M 


173        TIIK    HISTORY    OF   THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

was  amazing  to  behold.  Minerals  and  vegetables, 
solids  and  fluids,  shone  in  families  with  hitherto 
uncovered  types,  which  had  come  from  the  ex- 
haustless  beauty  of  the  Maker.  It  was  all  so  pon- 
derous and  yet  all  so  light,  so  multiplied  and  yet 
bo  simple,  so  profuse  yet  so  economical,  so  free  and 
yet  loving  law  so  strangely,  that  we  could  never 
weary  of  admiring  this  spectacle  of  the  material 
creation.  It  was  created  also  expressly  as  the 
equipage  of  the  Sacred  Humanity.  It  was  formed 
upon  its  model.  It  was  in  intimate  relations  with 
it.  The  Precious  Blood  was  beneath  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  its  laws,  even  while  it  was  advancing  like 
a  lawful  king  and  like  a  heavenly  conqueror. 
Verily  the  Divine  Decrees  are  coming  now  in 
sight  of  their  magnificent  conclusion. 

For  a  long  while  the  road  of  our  Procession  has 
lain  over  lonely  worlds,  now  in  lifeless  chaos,  in 
heaps  of  mineral  nun  or  in  fantastic  crystal  shapes, 
now  clamorous  with  life  which,  to  our  eyes  used  to 
other  types,  seems  portentous  and  uncouth,  now 
through  periods  of  glacial  cold  when  life  died  out. 
and  then  again  through  epochs  of  streaming  heat 
when  life  was  almost  strangled  in  the  green  density 
of  colossal  verdure.  Order  grows  beneath  the  feet 
of  the  Procession,  as  if  the  earth  were  beautified 
I)}'  its  advance:  when,  all  at  once,  in  a  mountain- 
girdled  garden  of  this  uncentral  planet  there  aro 
seen  amid  the  shades  two  startling  shapes,  shadows 
to  the  angels  the}-  would  seem,  shadows  of  Jesus 
and  Mary  whom  those  blessed  spirits  had  been 
allowed  to  gaze  upon  in  the  Divine  Decrees.  Now 
from  out  eternity  that  beautiful  patient  pomp  has 
reached  so  near  to  us,  has  reached  the  father  and 


THE    niSTORY   OF   THE    TRECIOtS   BLOOD.       179 

the  mother  from  whom  wc  ourselves  are  sprung 
But  why  does  it  linger  on  the  banks  of  Eden's 
fourfold  river?  Why  does  it  not  rather  come  on 
with  quickened  step,  quickened  by  love  to  meet  us, 
the  children  of  centuries  still  far  on,  who  are  so 
yearning  for  its  coming?  Alas!  there  are  mists 
covering  the  mountains.  There  are  rude  winds 
waving  the  boughs  of  Eden,  and  displacing  its  quiet 
foliage.  The  powers  of  evil,  through  mysterious 
permission,  are  breaking  up  out  of  their  dark  im- 
prisonment. There  is  a  stir  among  the  angels. 
The  faces  of  the  Divine  Decrees  are  clouded.  The 
Procession  has  halted,  not  in  confusion,  yet  ab- 
ruptly. Man  also  has  sought  himself,  and  has  used 
his  liberty  against  the  divine  dominion.  The 
beautiful  paradise  is  overcast  with  shades.  The 
rivers  brawl  more  hoarsel}'  in  their  beds.  There 
are  sounds  of  tempests  among  the  mountains.  The 
quiet  beasts  are  seized  with  a  panic  which  they  do 
not  comprehend.  Yet  there  is  no  suddenness  of 
God's  glorious  anger  now,  as  with  the  angels.  It 
is  as  if  there  were  heavenly  deliberations,  as  if 
mercy  were  pleading  against  justice,  and  staying 
the  uplifted  arm.  Those  two  human  faces,  the 
likenesses  of  Jesus  and  of  Mary,  are  sweet  to  the 
eye  of  God  even  in  their  fall.  That  look  of  human 
sorrow  and  of  human  penitence,  why  should  it  be 
so  availing?  Why  should  he  pause  to  look  at  it, 
and  as  if  to  let  it  work  upon  him,  when  he  dashed 
in  pieces  with  so  summary  a  wrath  the  surpassing 
beauty  of  those  countless  angels?  It  is  the  Pre- 
cious Blood  itself  which  seems  to  interfere.  It 
glows  with  unusual  light.  The  splendor  of  it  ap- 
pears to  clothe  the  justice,  and  the  mercy,  and  the 


180   THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  PRECIOUS  BLOOD. 

ganctity  of  God  with  a  glory  which  to  our  eyes 
makes  those  perfections  softer,  while  it  also  makes 
them  more  resplendent.  A  kind  of  glorified  sad- 
ness, yet  also  of  well  pleased  love,  comes  over  all 
countenances  in  that  Procession;  and  it  looks  even 
more  divine.  Now  angels  join  the  ranks,  bearing 
new  banners  in  their  hands,  emblazoned  with  mys- 
terious symbols.  They  are  the  emblems  of  the 
Passion.  The  vision  of  the  blissful  Mother  passes 
into  the  Queen  of  dolors;  and  the  Incarnation 
forsakes  the  white  brightness  of  Thabor  for  the 
unutterable  gloom  of  Calvary.  Yet  the  human 
sadness  beautifies  it  all.  That  Precious  Blood  was 
human  from  the  first;  and  now  that  those  two 
human  faces  of  Adam  and  of  Eve  have  joined  it, 
and  have  not  onl}'  joined  it  but  called  forth  new 
possibilities  in  its  nature,  there  seem,  if  we  may 
dare  to  say  it,  a  more  congruous  loveliness,  a  more 
harmonious  unity,  in  the  wonderful  Procession. 
But  it  turns  away  from  the  mountainous  frontiers 
of  Eden,  and  advances  slowly  over  the  expanses 
of  the  untilled  earth. 

Men  built  cities  for  themselves,  because  they 
had  instincts  of  the  heavenly  city  which  was 
above;  and  Damascus  was  the  first  city  which 
they  built,  the  first  Jerusalem  of  the  Precious 
Blood.  Then  for  four  thousand  years  the  ever- 
widening  and  ever-lengthening  Procession  wended 
on.  They  were  four  thousand  years  of  those  grand 
vicissitudes  which  form  the  traditions  and  religions 
of  all  the  nations  of  the  earth.  There  was  a 
murder  and  a  martyrdom  just  outside  the  gates 
of  paradise.  The  first  brother  shed  his  brother's 
blood,  and  the  hitherto  unpolluted  earth  cried  aloud 


THE    HISTORY    OF    TIIE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD.        181 

to  God.  Yet,  rightly  considered,  that  elder  brother 
was  not  the  first  to  shed  fraternal  blood;  Adam 
had  already  shed  the  Blood  of  his  Elder  Brother, 
who  should  also  be  his  Son,  in  Eden  itself:  and 
now  Abel,  like  another  St.  Stephen,  -was  the  martyr 
of  the  Precious  Blood,  and  went  to  dwell,  himself 
the  first  inhabitant,  in  the  peaceful  expectation 
of  the  limbus  of  the  Fathers.  They  were  wild 
scenes,  amidst  which  the  Procession  had  now  to 
move.  The  o-lorious  science  of  Adam  faded  from 
the  minds  of  men.  The  patience  of  God  seemed 
at  last  worn  out,  and  the  deluge  came.  But  the 
Precious  Blood,  with  its  retinue  of  angels,  was 
everywhere  on  the  face  of  the  angry  waters.  It 
was  not  only  in  the  ark  with  the  chosen  eight.  It 
was  cleansing  countless  souls  among  the  drowning. 
It  was  shriving  them  upon  the  high  hill-tops.  It 
was  uttering  brief  but  victorious  prayers  out  of 
their  souls,  as  they  sank  like  stones  into  the  depths. 
That  Flood  was  a  stern  mission.  Yet  the  Precious 
Blood  was  a  marvellous  missionary,  and  a  glorious 
harvest  of  souls  was  garnered,  with  Abel  and  the 
primeval  saints,  into  the  limbus  of  the  Fathers. 
But  the  new  earth  grew  colossal  sins.  It  was  like 
the  time  when  the  steaming  soil  had  grown  tho 
gigantic  ferns  of  the  coal-beds.  The  cries  of  tho 
hunters  filled  the  glens,  and  the  animals  fell  off 
from  human-kind  in  terror  and  alarm.  Had  God's 
judgments  only  quickened  the  fertility  of  sin? 
Truly  a  singular  portentousness  of  sin  answered 
to  a  singular  immensity  of  mercy.  Multitudes 
banded  together  to  build  a  high  tower  to  reach 
to  the  low-seeming  heavens;  but  their  tongues 
were  confounded,  and  they  could  no  longer  sing 

16 


182        THE    HISTORY    OF   THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

the  same  songs  in  the  Procession.  Still  every, 
whore  that  Procession  was  reflected;  for  their  re- 
ligion and  their  worship  were  nothing  hut  blood- 
shedding  and  prayer. 

It  would  take  too  long  to  tell  all  the  travels  of 
the  Precious  Blood  during  those  wistful  ages,  while 
it  was  at  once  a  pilgrim  and  a  warrior,  an  explorer 
and  a  king,  a  conqueror  going  up  to  take  posses- 
sion and  a  victim  led  forth  to  sacrifice  and  to  he 
slain.  We  know  of  it  by  the  tents  of  Abraham 
on  the  Chaldean  plains.  It  was  Isaac's  evening 
meditation  in  his  pastoral  fields.  Jacob  dreamed 
of  it  in  the  dark  nights  upon  the  lonely  wolds  of 
Mesopotamia.  Job  sang  of  it  wonderfully  amid 
the  ruddy  cliffs  of  the  Stony  Arabia.  Moses  shed 
the  glory  of  if  over  the  gravelly  desert  and  round 
the  haunted  sanctuaries  of  Sinai.  It  shone  like 
moonlight  over  Palestine,  and  it  was  the  dim  but 
sufficient  light  of  all  the  rest  of  earth.  The  time 
of  sunshine  was  not  come.  It  was  a  voice  of  min- 
strelsy in  the  heart  of  David,  ravishing  the  world. 
It  was  the  sun  behind  the  clouds  of  prophecy, 
making  them  to  glow  with  such  a  crimson  glory. 
The  temple  of  Jerusalem  was  its  well-head;  but 
its  tricklings  reached  to  the  newest-peopled  island 
in  the  far  Pacific.  It  had  made  the  linibus  of  the 
Fathers  populous  with  the  accumulated  genera- 
tions of  the  saints.  Angels  cannot  tire.  Yet 
there  was  a  look  of  weariness  about  the  long  Pro- 
cession. It  went  slowly,  was  often  silent,  and  was 
manifestly  travel-stained.  Sighs  took  the  place 
of  songs.  Hearts  made  faces  beautiful  by  the 
intensity  of  their  desires.  Yet  on  many  counte- 
nances there  was  an  air  of  doubt  which  mingled 


THE    HISTORY    OF   THE    TRECiOCS    BLOOD.         183 

sadly  with  their  wistfulness.  Everywhere  there 
were  hands  of  brave  Maccabees,  whoso  hearts 
could  he  unmanned  by  no  captivity.  But  the 
greater  part  of  men  marched  on  like  slaves  coinc 
toward  the  land  of  their  foreign  bondage,  rather 
than  pilgrims  to  their  homes.  Nevertheless,  in 
the  foresight  of  the  shedding  of  that  Blood,  grace 
took  possession  of  those  four  thousand  years,  and 
delighted  itself  in  incessant  victories,  victories  that 
■were  not  confined  to  the  chosen  race  of  Israel. 

But  now  a  great  and  sudden  change  comes  over 
the  aspect  of  our  Procession.     It  is  not  so  much  a 
change  in  the  retinue  of  the  Precious  Blood,  as  it 
was  in  the  case  of  Adam  and  Eve:  this  time  it  is 
a  marvellous  change  in  the  Precious  Blood  itself. 
It  has  prepared  all  things  for  itself  in  secret;  but 
its  preparations  have  been  hidden  mysteries.     The 
souls  of  Joachim   and   Anne   have  been  adorned 
with  unusual  graces.     The  yearnings  of  the  saints 
in    Israel    have    burned  within    them,  until    their 
hearts  have  hardly  been  able  to  endure  the  fire. 
The  instincts  of  all  the  earth  have  grown  uneasy, 
as  if  some   unwonted    thing   were    coming   upon 
nature.     In  secret  the  Precious  Blood  has  done  a 
work    which    may  vie    with    the   great   work   on 
Calvary.     It  has  effected  the  Immaculate  Concep- 
tion, wherein  heaven  was  opened,  and  such  abysses 
of  grace  poured  out  upon  the  earth,  that  the  accu- 
mulated  graces   of  the   four   thousand   years   of 
human  history,  and  even  the  worlds  of  grace  with 
which  the  angels  were  so  munificently  endowed, 
were   as  drops  to  the  ocean   compared  with  the 
grace  of  the  Immaculate   Conception.     Beautiful 
as  an   unexpected   sunrise    seen   suddenly  as  wo 


IS!       THE    HISTORY   OF   THE   TRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

turn  out  of  the  dark  denies  of  a  mountain-pass, 
was  the  Nativity  of  Mary,  as  the  Procession  of  tho 
Precious  Blood  came  all  at  once  into  its  visible 
effulgence.  Perhaps  there  is  not  among  the  divine 
mysteries  one  of  such  unblemished  gladness,  of 
such  unmixed  joy,  as  the  Nativity  of  our  Blessed 
Mother.  It  was  like  Bethlehem,  without  those 
grave  foreshadowings  of  Calvary  which  give  to 
Bethlehem  such  pathetic  solemnity.  The  birth 
of  Mary  was  like  a  mystery  of  the  unfallen  world. 
It  was  the  sort  of  mystery  unfallen  worlds  would 
have,  and  its  feast  the  sort  of  feast  unfallen  souls 
would  keep.  Swiftly  the  Procession  advances. 
The  shapes,  the  figures,  and  the  symbols  of  the 
pageant  seem  to  furl  themselves  one  by  one,  while 
the  Precious  Blood  assumes  the  distinct  features 
of  an  actual  Human  Life.  It  is  more  heavenly 
now,  because  it  is  more  earthly.  Its  actual  crea- 
tion renders  yet  more  visible  those  uncreated  per- 
fections out  of  which  it  sprang.  It  is  more  mani- 
festly a  glory  to  be  worshipped,  now  that  it  can  be 
seen  in  the  Face  of  the  Infant  Jesus. 

But  who  can  tell  the  beauty  of  that  Precious 
Blood,  as  it  moved  about  the  earth  with  slow 
human  movement  during  the  Three-and-Thirty 
Years?  Saints  rapt  in  ecstasy  may  see, and  haply 
may  in  part  understand  a  spiritual  loveliness,  which 
they  cannot  express  in  words.  Like  other  artists, 
their  conceptions  are  mostly  above  the  level  of 
language.  But  to  us  the  Thirty-Three  Years  are 
an  indistinct  wonder,  distinct  enough  to  fix  us  in 
admiration,  and  to  make  our  hearts  burn  with 
love,  but  indistinct  so  far  as  understanding  goes, 
There  is  something  in  our  Lord's  mysteries,  which 


TIIK    HISTORY    OF   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD.        185 

is  akin  to  the  Divine  Perfections.  They  are  host 
seen  in  indistinctness.  An  indistinct  view  seems 
to  teach  us  more  than  a  distinct  one.  We  see 
more  truthfully,  if  not  more  clearly,  when  oar 
view  is  less  defined.  When  our  view  is  distinct,  it 
is  like  a  beautiful  picture  or  a  beautiful  poem.  It 
pleases  and  soothes;  it  elevates  and  chastens;  it 
sobers  and  refines.  It  fills  us  full  of  sweet  thoughts, 
noble  sympathies,  and  heavenly  imaginations.  But 
it  is  not  the  repose  of  prayer.  It  is  not  the  heat  of 
the  mystical  life.  It  is  not  the  swiftness  of  spiritual 
growth.  It  only  unites  us  to  God  in  a  distant  or  a 
circuitous  way.  The  saints  perhaps  may  see  these 
mysteries  clearly,  and  yet  at  the  same  time  with 
such  a  view  as  transforms  their  souls  and  unites  them 
to  God  in  the  crowning  grace  of  the  divine  espousals. 
To  them,  a  spiritual  beauty  may  be  always  a  spiritual 
grace.  Yet  even  to  contemplative^  there  is  for  the 
most  part  more  of  heavenly  and  supernatural  ope- 
ration in  an  indistinct  view  of  the  Divine  Perfec- 
tions and  of  the  Mysteries  of  Jesus,  than  in  a  dis- 
tinct one.  We  only  desire  to  know,  in  order  that 
we  may  increase  our  love.  To  love  is  better  than 
to  know.  Indeed,  it  is  itself  a  higher  knowledge. 
Here,  then,  at  the  point  of  Bethlehem,  the  Pro- 
cession of  the  Precious  Blood  comes  out  into  a 
light  too  strong  for  us  to  see  the  details  of  its 
magnificence.  It  is  too  near  to  us  to  be  seen  ex- 
cept in  detail,  and  its  details  are  too  bright  to  be 
distinct.  Like  all  the  works  of  God,  it  hides 
itself  by  coming  close  up  to  us.  We  must  speak 
of  it  hereafter  from  a  different  point  of  view, 
rather  as  of  a  Lite,  than  as  of  a  Procession  Never- 
theless it  moved  in  fairest  pomp  along  those  Three- 

16* 


186       THE    HISTORY    OF    THE    I'KECIOUS    BLOOD 

and-Thirty  Tears  of  visible,  earthly,  human  life. 
Now  and  then  it  appeared  upon  the  highways  of 
the  world  and  in  the  streets  of  cities;   but  for  the 
most  part  it  haunted  sequestered    retreats  of  its 
own,  and  it  haunted  them  with  mysterious  delays. 
It  bore  its  banners  furled.     No  voice  of  song,  but 
the  low  strains  of  the  Mother's  Magnificat,  were 
heard  in  its  encampments.     A  saint,  whose  very 
soul   was   part   of    the    silence   of    heaven,    alone 
guarded  it  for  nearly  all  its  appointed  years.      For 
thousands  of  years  the  world  had  looked  for  its 
manifestation j  and  now, behold!  that  manifestation 
was  a  concealment.     Before  it  came,  it  was  a  pal- 
pable pageant  of  history.    When  it  came,  it  melted, 
as  a  cloud  melts  in  the  sunshine,  into  the  more 
substantial    reality  of  a  divine   mystery.     It   hid 
itself  in  Mary;  and  we  see  it  for  an   instant  pass- 
ing in  unwonted  haste  over  the  uplands  of  Judea. 
AYe    hear  it  in  the   tones  of  Mary's  voice.     Wo 
taste   it  in   the   sweetness  of  her   chosen  words. 
By  the  light  of  Joseph's  lantern  we  catch  a  glimpse 
of  it  at  midnight  on  the  floor  of  a  cave  at  Beth- 
lehem,where  shepherds  gaze  in  silence,  and  Oriental 
kino-s  are  kneeling  to  adore,  while  the  angels,  who 
that  night  could  not  be  so  silent  as  their  God,  sing 
hio-h   up   in    heaven  as  if  they  feared    lest   their 
jubilee   should  wake    the  earth   and  divulge  the 
secret  of  their  King.     In  the  courts  of  the  great 
temple  we  sec  the  humble  pomp  of  its  dear  Can- 
dlemas, a  sort  of  childish  anticipation  of  its  second 
triumph  on  Palm  Sunday  more   than    thrice    ten 
years  hereafter.    It  moves  along  the  sandy  deprcs* 
sions  and  stone-sprinkled  troughs  of  the    desert, 
not  in  a  glorious  caravan  of  merchants  laden  with 


TIIE    HISTORY   OF   THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD.        187 

the  gold  and  jewels  of  India  or  with  the  drugs 
and  gums  of  Araby,  but  in  a  timid  pilgrimage 
with  Joseph  and  with  Mary.  It  hides  amidst  the 
bulrushes  of  the  Egyptian  river,  as  the  cradle  of 
the  Hebrew  lawgiver  had  hidden  centuries  ago. 
Once  more  it  wound  its  way  across  the  desert. 
Its  pilgrimage  was  one  of  three  now,  whereas 
seven  years  before  it  seemed  only  to  be  of  two, 
itself  being  nothing  more  than  the  alternate  burden 
of  the  foster-father  and  the  mother.  The  Boy  can 
walk  now,  though  the  sands  weary  his  Feet  with 
their  burning,  and  the  pebbles  bruise  him  with 
their  hardness.  But  the  thorns  of  the  acacias  and 
the  prickles  of  the  salt-plants  pierce  him,  and  his 
Feet  leave  a  faint  line  of  red  behind  them,  which 
angels  adore  and  recognise  as  the  veritable  Proces- 
sion of  the  Precious  Blood. 

As  if  impelled  by  its  kingly  instincts,  it  drew 
near  its  own  lawful  palace  in  Jerusalem  ;  and  then, 
as  if  glad  of  an  excuse  to  hide  itself  afresh,  it 
turned  aside  through  fear  of  a  usurping  king,  and 
sank,  like  a  bird  whom  the  hawk  has  been  pur- 
suing, into  that  hidden  bowl  of  mountain-meadows 
which  men  call  Nazareth.  Here  it  disappeared, 
like  a  river  which  has  gone  under  ground.  There 
was  a  long  halt  of  three-and-twenty  years.  Occa- 
sionally, when  the  crowding  of  the  feasts  gave 
greater  facilities  for  its  disguise,  it  went  over  the 
steep  paths  to  its  sacred  metropolis,  and  worshipped 
in  the  temple  amidst  the  multitude.  Once  very 
notably  it  appeared  there,  five  years  after  the  re- 
turn from  Egypt;  and  its  voice  was  heard  in  the 
Jewish  schools;  and  its  beauty  looked  out  of  bo}r- 
isb  eyes  into  the  hearts  of  old  men  and  wise  scho 


188        THE    HISTORY    OF   THE   TRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

lars  and  profound  interpreters,  and  puzzled  them 
with  its  loveliness,  which  needed  a  more  spiritual 
interpreting  than  they  could  give.  This  was  a 
moment  in  the  Procession  of  the  Precious  Blood, 
of  all  moments  the  most  difficult  to  understand, 
for  it  seemed  to  turn  away  from  that  fountain  in 
Mary's  heart,  round  which  it  had  been  flowing  in 
rings  which  seemed  to  draw  nearer  at  every  cir- 
cuit. But  it  had  this  time  only  fetched  a  wider 
circuit,  that  it  might  better  turn,  and  flow  straight 
hack  into  its  fountain,  and  live  hidden  there  in 
indistinguishable  distinctness  for  eighteen  years 
of  another  childhood,  which  the  strength  of  size 
and  age  only  adorned  with  more  tender  ministries 
and  only  graced  with  a  more  beautiful  docility. 
Even  the  appearances,  the  looks,  the  outward 
shows  of  divine  mysteries  are  full  of  significance. 
In  this  staying  behind  at  Jerusalem  it  seems  as  if 
the  Eternal  Father  and  the  mortal  Mother  were 
beckoning  the  Procession  of  the  Precious  Blood 
different  ways,  and  as  if  in  the  end  the  Creator 
had  given  way  to  his  chosen  creature.  This  is  the 
look  of  that  secret  parting  of  the  Boy  of  twelve 
it  the  gate  of  Jerusalem. 

But  now,  as  through  some  gateway  on  which 
the  sun  is  brightly  shining,  or  some  triumphal 
arch  hung  round  with  braided  flowers,  the  Proces- 
sion of  the  Precious  Blood  issues  out  of  the  pas- 
toral solitude-  of  Nazareth  at  Cana  of  Galilee  in 
the  unexpected  light  of  a  marriage-feast.  It  was 
as  if  the  multiplying  of  the  human  family  was  a 
joy  to  its  love  of  souls.  With  how  exquisite  a 
fittingness,  and  with  how  much  disclosure  of  his 
own  character,  did  our  Lord  make  that  first  of  his 


TnE    niSTORY    OF    THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.         189 

public* mysteries  a  triumph  to  his  Mother!  AW 
know  not  how  to  express  the  glory  of  that  feast 
to  her.     The  eternal  counsels  were  anticipated  at 

her  word.  The  time,  which  in  our  Lord's  mind 
hud  not  come,  came  at  bis  Mother's  will:  and  the 
first  refulgence  of  his  miracles  shone  forth  on  her, 
ami  at  her  bidding.  Through  her  he  had  entered 
on  the  earth  :  through  her  he  entered  on  his  .Minis 
try.  With  her  he  went  up  Calvary:  with  her  he 
mounted  the  Uill  of  the  Ascension.  All  the  mys- 
teries of  Jesus  are  "-lories  of  Mary.  The  Ministry 
is  not  less  full  of  her  fragrance  than  the  Childhood 
or  the  Passion.  As  the  Father's  work  was  deferred 
for  Mary  when  her  Son  was  twelve,  the  same  work 
was  precipitated  for  her  when  he  was  f.hirty, 

Through  this  portal,  then,  of  Cana  in  Galilee, 
this  Gate  of  Mary,  as  we  may  call  it,  the  Precious 
Blood  issued  forth  from  its  concealment.  The  low 
white  houses  gleamed  with  their  flat  roofs  among 
the  pomegranate-trees,  and  the  broad-leaved  tigs, 
and  the  shrubby  undergrowths,  while  the  plain 
below  was  all  waving  with  the  billow}' corn.  The 
corn  below,  even  if  it  bore  a  thousandfold,  was 
but  a  poor  figure  of  the  harvest  that  Blood  should 
gather  now,  that  Blood  which  shone  more  ruby- 
like than  the  ripest  pomegranate  in  Cana.  A  little 
water  from  the  village  well  was  turned  into  gene- 
rous wine;  but  that  Blood,  which  men  will  spill 
like  water,  shall  be  the  wine  of  immortality  to  all 
the  world.  Now  for  three  years  the  Processiou 
of  the  Precious  Blood  moved  to  and  fro  within  tho 
precincts  of  the  Holy  Land.  One  while  it  was  upon 
the  hill-tops,  which  look  down  upon  the  lake,  the 
lake  of  the  Great  Vocations,  as  we  ma}'  fitly  name 


1!>0        THE    HISTORY    OF   THE   TRECTOUS    BLOOD. 

it.  Another  while  it  was  winding  along  the  paths 
which  clove  the  tall  corn  in  the  fields.  The  day 
saw  it  in  the  temple-courts ;  the  moonlight  dis- 
closed it  in  the  gray  hollows  of  the  stony  moun- 
tains. It  went  to  carry  blessing  to  the  houses  of 
the  poor;  and  it  crossed  the  inland  sea  in  the 
boats  of  fishermen.  Yet  it  did  not  move  at  ran- 
dom. Jts  very  journeys  were  a  ritual.  It  was 
like  the  procession  in  the  consecration  of  a  church. 
Its  movements  have  a  meaning,  and  make  up  a 
whole.  Whether  it  goes  round  the  walls  with  the 
bunch  of  hyssop,  or  writes  alphabets  on  the  ash- 
strewn  floor,  or  clusters  in  seeming  confusion 
round  the  yet  unconsccrated  altar,  there  is  a  sym- 
bol and  a  law  in  every  posture.  So  was  it  with 
the  sinuous  wanderings  of  the  Precious  Blood  in 
Palestine.  Like  the  course  of  the  Israelites  in  the 
desert,  it  had  a  pattern  to  the  eye  of  God,  and 
betokened  some  hidden  wisdom,  which  wc  are  un- 
able to  decipher.  It  was  beautiful  beyond  words, 
beautiful  bej'ond  our  comprehension.  It  had  no 
ornaments.  Its  figurative  pageantry  was  gone. 
The  words  of  life  were  its  only  music.  It  was 
now  neither  like  a  pilgrimage  nor  a  march.  There 
was  nothing  to  which  it  could  be  compared.  It 
was  a  Countenance  which  moved  to  and  fro,  in- 
tensely human  because  it  was  more  than  human, 
smiling,  weeping,  looking  downcast,  adoring,  speak- 
ing, clad  in  wonderful  anger,  bound  in  placid  sleep, 
pale,  weary,  meek,  submissive,  yet  unspeakably 
commanding.  All  human  expressions  gathered 
there,  save  one;  and  that  was  the  expression  of 
surprise.  Sometimes  in  his  words  there  was  what 
Bounded  like  a  tone  of  surprise,  escaping  plaint- 


TIIK    II  [STORY    OF    THE    r-rlECIOUS    BLOOD.        101 

ivcly  from  some  wounded  love  within  his  Heart. 
But  on  the  vastness  of  his  mind  nothing  like  sur- 
prise could  dawn,  nor  any  perplexity  pass  upon 
the  serenity  of  his  Face.  To  see  that  Face  was  a 
heaven  to  the  pure  and  good  ;  and  when  the  heart 
came  to  fear  too  much,  because  the  beauty  of  the 
Face  was  so  reverend,  its  likeness  to  the  Mother's 
face  confused  it,  sweetly  with  earthly  things,  and 
enabled  the  heart  to  repose  on  its  divinity.  Thus 
the  Procession  came  to  Olivet  and  Calvary. 

Who  can  gaze  steadily  on  the  intolerable  bright- 
ness of  that  Procession  now,  all  flashing  with  a 
crimson  light  which  blinds  the  eye  of  the  be- 
holder? As,  when  Ave  gaze  upon  the  sun,  we  seem 
to  see  it  double,  and  the  two  orbs  quiver  in  our 
wounded  eyes  with  a  vermilion  haze,  so  is  it  with 
the  Precious  Blood  amid  the  mysteries  of  the 
Passion.  It  appears  double.  There  are  two  Pro- 
cessions instead  of  one.  One  is  all  shame,  and 
suffering,  and  defeat.  We  might  almost  have  said 
disorder;  but  there  is  something  so  venerable  in 
its  disgrace,  something  so  imposing  in  the  tran- 
quillity of  that  Countenance,  that  there  is  ordei 
and  self-masteiy  in  its  abasement.  The  other  Pro- 
cession is  all  triumph  and  exultation.  Eager  mercy 
hurries  to  and  fro.  Hidden  counsels  of  the  Eter- 
nal open  their  banners  for  the  first  time,  and  wave 
them  joyously ;  and  the  jubilant  silence  of  the  angels 
is  so  intense  that  we  might  almost  dream  we  heard 
it,  as  some  strain  of  music  in  which  the  complain- 
ings of  blameless  envy  mingled  with  the  impas- 
sioned notes  of  self-forgetting  victory,  lfow  dark 
the  stains  looked  in  the  moonlight  that  silvered 
the  olive-tops  of  lone  Gcthsemane  !     How  the  red 


192        THE    HISTORY    OF    THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

rain  spotted  the  pavements  of  Jerusalem,  like  those 
portentous  showers  of  blood  which  pagan  history 
records  with  fright !     How  ivd  the  streams  looked 

upon  the  white  Body,  and  then  how  black!  and 
how  the  eclipse,  which  came  on  and  hid  it  all, 
made  the  spectre  of  it  burn  with  a  fiery  reality  in 
our  eyes,  because  we  knew  so  certainly  and  so 
exactly  what  the  darkness  contained  !  At  the  foot 
of  the  Cross  also  the  Blood  itself  looks  double ; 
for.  if  the  Face  of  Jesus  was  like  the  face  of  Mary, 
now  the  tears  of  Mary  are  like  the  Blood  of 
Jesus.  They  were  tears  of  blood,  and  of  the  very 
blood  which  had  been  the  fountain  ot  the  Precious 
Blood. 

Then  a  change  comes  over  our  Procession.  The 
Blood  goes  alone.  It  is  no  longer  in  the  Sacred 
Heart  as  in  its  living  tabernacle.  It  is  no  longer 
mantling  in  the  Mary-like  Face.  It  is  apart  and 
uncompanioned  now,  and  by  itself  is  absolutely 
adorable.  The  souls  of  men  have  got  the  Soul  of 
Jesus  to  themselves  beneath  the  earth,  where  it  is 
bri»-htenin<r  the  caverns  with  the  Beatific  Vision. 
The  love  and  piety  of  men  have  tended  the  Body, 
embalmed  it,  and  laid  it  in  the  tomb.  To  whom 
shall  the  Blood  belong?  Even  to  those  for  whom 
only  it  was  not  shed  in  expiation,  to  those  for 
whom  only  it  was  not  a  ransom,  to  the  multitudes 
of  the  delighted  angels  !  Who  can  tell  their  jubi- 
lee  in  that  brief  but  sole  possession  of  the  ransom 
of  mankind  ?  They  are  sentinels  over  it,  where  it 
lay.  On  the  hard  stones  of  the  street  and  on  the 
stained  plants  of  Calvary,  on  the  accoutrements 
of  the  soldiers  and  on  the  garments  of  the  great 
Mother,  in  the  dry  dust  of  Olivet  and  on  all  the 


TIIE    HISTORY    OF   THE    TRECIOUS   BLOOD.        193 

instruments  of  the  Passion,  they  kept  watch  and 
ward,  and  adored  the  Precious  Blood.     Mary  saw 
them,  and  blessed  them  in  their  deed.     Through 
the  Friday  night,  and   the   Saturday,  and  till   the 
Sunday  dawned,  tiny  sang  their  voiceless  songs  in 
those   low-lying    crevices  of  earth,    finding   their 
heaven   amid   the  dust  of  men's  feet.   !  Then   they 
raised  each  drop  with  touch  of  reverent  fear  and 
tremulous   abasement,  and  set  it  up  as  a  gram  I 
thing  of  beauty  and  of  worship,  and  went  in  un- 
imaginable procession  to  the  sepulchre.     Who  can 
tell    how    they   marshalled    that   pomp   upon   the 
earth,  nor  how  like  it  was  to  that  simultaneous 
order  of  the  Incarnation,  of  which  theology  teaches 
such  marvellous  things,  nor  how  like  it  was  to  the 
Chalice  which  Jesus  himself  had  consecrated,  as  it 
were  an  external  Sacred  Heart,  on   the  Thursday 
night,  nor  how  like  it  is  now  to  the  daily  separa- 
tion of  the  Blood    in    the   Chalice  of  the    Mass? 
Alongside  of  the  Soul  returned  from   limhus,  and 
enjoying  the  same  Divine  Union  as  the  Soul,  tho 
Precious  Blood  re-entered  the  Sacred  Heart,  filled 
with  the  sounds  of  life  its  silent  halls,  and  poured 
the  glorified   beauty  of  an   immortal    human    life 
over  every  sacred  Limb,  effacing  all  vestige  of  the 
Passion,    save    where   it   gathered    itself  up   and 
burst  forth  into  five  roseate  suns   in   the  Hands 
and  Feet   and  Heart,  suns   whose  exuberant   ra- 
diance is  causing  unsctting  day  this  hour  in  the 
farthest  extremities  of  heaven.     But  that  separate 
procession,    that   exclusive   keeping   of   the    Pre- 
cious Blood,  is  a  glory  and  a  pride  of  the  angelic 
kingdom,    which    their   songs  will    tell  of  to   all 
eternity. 

N  17 


101         THE    HISTORY    OF   THE   TRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

Green  Nazareth  was  not  a  closer  hiding-place 
than  the  risen  glory  of  the  Forty  Days.  As  of  old, 
the  Precious  Blood  clung  round  the  sinless  Mother. 
Like  a  stream  that  will  not  leave  its  parent  chain 
of  mountains,  but  laves  them  incessantly  with 
many  an  obstinate  meandering,  so  did  the  Blood 
of  Jesus,  shed  for  all  hearts  of  men,  haunt  the 
single  heart  of  Mary.  Fifteen  times,  or  more,  in 
those  Forty  Pays,  it  came  out  from  under  the 
shadow  of  Mary's  gladness  and  gleamed  forth  in 
beautiful  apparitions.  Each  of  them  is  a  histo^ 
in  itself,  and  a  mystery,  and  a  revelation.  Never 
did  the  Sacred  Heart  say  or  do  such  ravishing 
things  as  during  those  Forty  Days  of  its  Risen 
Life.  The  Precious  Blood  had  almost  grown  more 
human  from  having  been  three  days  in  the  keeping 
of  the  angels.  But,  as  it  had  mounted  Calvary  on 
Good  Friday,  so  now  it  mounts  Olivet  on  Ascen- 
sion Thursday,  and  disappears  into  heaven  amidst 
the  whiteness  of  the  silver  clouds.  It  had  been 
but  a  decree  in  heaven  before,  a  divine  idea,  an 
eternal  compassion,  an  inexplicable  complacency 
of  the  life  of  God.  It  returns  thither  a  Human 
Life,  and  is  throned  at  the  Right  Hand  of  the 
Father  forever  in  right  of  its  inalienable  union 
with  the  Person  of  the  Word.  There  is  no  change 
in  the  Unchangeable.  But  in  heaven  there  had 
never  been  change  like  this  before,  nor  ever  will 
be  again.  The  changes  of  the  Great  Doom  can  h& 
nothing  compared  to  the  exaltation  of  the  Sacred 
Humanity  of  the  Eternal  Word.  The  very  worship 
of  the  glorious  spirits  was  changed,  so  changed 
that  the  angels  themselves  cannot  say  how  it  is 
that  no  change  has  passed  on  God.     Somehow  the 


THE    HISTORY   OE   TIIE    TRECIOUS    BLOOD.       JOS 

look  of  change  has  enhanced  the  magi  ificence  of 
the  divine  immutability,  and  has  given  a  new 
gladness  to  their  adoration  of  jts  unspeakable 
tranquillity. 

For  a  moment  nothing  on  earth  is  visible.     The 
while  light  of  the  Ascension  has  dazzled  our  eyes. 
We  see  a  confused  splendor,  and  nothing  more.    It 
is   but  for  a   moment;  and   then,  more  wonderful 
than  ever,  the  Procession  lies  outstretched  before 
the  vision  of  our  minds.     It  is  no  longer  sinjde. 
It  is  not  even  double,  as  it  was  on  Calvary.     It  is 
treble  now.     Girdled  with  amazing  refulgence,  it 
tills  all  heaven.  Upon  earth,  breaking  away  beyond 
the  confines  of  Palestine,  it  is  visible  in  all  nations 
of   the   globe,    and   crossing    the    broadest   seas. 
Everywhere  it  is  traversing  the  plains,  scaling  the 
mountains,  and  penetrating  the  sanctuaries  of  the 
wilderness.    The  Procession  in  repose  above  is  like 
the  Procession  of  the  Thirty-Three  Years.     It  is 
the  actual  life  of  the  Precious  Blood.     The  Pro- 
cession below  is  the  omnipresence  of  its  power,  the 
outstreaming  of  grace  from  its  treasuries,  faith's 
veritable  application  of  the  Precious  Blood  to  the 
souls  of  men.     This  last  is  like  the  Procession  of 
the  four  thousand  years  before  the  Incarnation, 
only  that  it  has  now  sacramental  realities  of  its 
own,  and  looks  backward  to  the  past,  not,  as  that 
other  Procession,  forward  to  a  future.     The  third 
Procession  is  not  one,  but  manifold,  and  multiplied 
incessantly.     Swifter  than  the  sunbeam,  from  out 
the  opened  heavens  the  Precious  Blood  is  flowing 
upon  the  altars  of  the  Church.     It  is  filling  in- 
numerable chalices  at  the  same  moment  in   the 
most  distant  places.     The  Sacred  Heart,  which  is 


196         THE    HISTORY   OF    THE   TRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

its  natural  tabernacle,  is  halting  in  countless 
tabernacles  of  human  artifice,  or  is  being  borne 
about  the  fields  and  streets  to  the  dying  by  tho 
anointed  servants  of  our  Lord.  This  last  Pro- 
cession is  not  less  actual  than  the  one  which  is  in 
heaven.  It  lives  the  same  glorified  life.  It  is  but 
one  life,  and  the  same  lite.  This  is  the  threefold 
vision  of  the  Precious  Blood,  which  we  see  when 
the  radiance  of  the  Ascension  has  passed  away. 
The  one  in  heaven  ministers  in  unknown  mys- 
teries to  the  Majesty  of  the  Father.  The  one  that 
moves  over  the  earth  is  the  minister  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  who  guides  and  rules  the  Church.  Tho 
mingled  activity  and  rest  of  the  Blessed  Sacra- 
ment is  the  human  life  of  the  Eternal  Son  himself, 
haunting  the  earth  which  he  loved  so  dearly  as  to 
redeem  it  with  his  Blood.  So  the  glory  of  the 
Holv  Trinity  satiates  itself  upon  the  Precious 
Blood. 

The  Upper  Eoom  of  Pentecost  is  another  Bethle- 
hem. It  is  the  birthplace  of  the  Church.  There 
is  the  same  Mother  as  in  the  midnight  cave.  But, 
instead  of  Joseph,  there  are  apostles.  Instead  of 
angels'  songs  in  the  quiet  midnight,  there  is  the 
rushing  wind  of  the  Eternal  Spirit;  and  his  fiery 
tongues,  instead  of  the  wintry  brightness  of  tho 
stars.  From  that  Upper  Eoom  the  Procession 
seems  to  start  again.  Not  that  the  Precious  Blood 
had  left  the  earth,  even  at  the  Ascension.  The 
whole  of  those  ten  days  it  lay,  in  real  sacramental 
presence  unconsumed,  on  Mary's  immaculate  heart 
as  on  a  reposoir.  But  it  is  not  our  present  purpose 
to  dwell  upon  the  analogies  between  Bethlehem 
and  the  Eoom  of  Pentecost.     We  must  still  follow 


THE    fllSTOUY    OF   THE    TRECIOUS    BLOOD.        197 

our  Procession.     From  the  day  of  Pentecost  wo 
can  see  its  course  onward  for  ages.     The  scenery 
of  history  is  more  varied   than   even    that  of  geo- 
graphy.     It  has  its  bleak  mountains  and  its  culti- 
vated lands,  its  valleys  and  its  plains,  its  forests 
and  even  its  deserts,  its  cities  and  its  solitudes,  its 
beautiful  maritime  borders  and  its  gray  expanses 
of    melancholy    wold.      Across    all    this    various 
scenery   the    Procession    of    the    Precious   Blood 
moves  on,  sometimes  in  single  pomp,  sometimes 
multiplied  into  many  pomps,  then  again  reuniting 
in    one,  or    again    sending    forth  a    branch   which 
shines   for   many  a  league   and    then   disappears 
gradually  or  at  once,  as  if  the  earth  had  drunk  it 
up,  as  the  sands  drink  the  rivers  of  the  desert. 
Still  its  course  is  plainly  onward,  from  the  east  to 
the  west ;    and    its  metropolis    is    changed,  from 
Jerusalem  to  Rome.     Its  pageantry  is  more  mag- 
nificent   than    ever.      The  choirs  of   angels   still 
attend  it;  bat  its  sacred  vessels  are  borne  by  a 
resplendent  human  hierarchy,  which  is  a  copy  of 
the   hierarchies  of  heaven,  and  an  emanation  of 
the  eternal  priesthood  of  Jesus.    At  its  head  moves 
the  never-dying  Peter,  the  prince  of  the  apostles 
and  the  vicar  of  his  Lord,  while  by  his  side  moves 
evermore  the  glorious  St.  Michael,  the  captain  of 
the  hosts  of  God   and   the  famous  zealot  of  his 
honor.      So  multiplied  are    the   symbols  and  the 
blazonries  of  Mary,  that  avc  might  sometimes  take 
it  for  a  procession  of  our  Lady.     But  then  again, 
from  its  more   solemn   pomp,  and    more    austere 
observance,  we  perceive  that  it  is  in  truth  a  Pro- 
cession of  the  Blessed  Sacrament.     Above  it  all, 
in  a  glory  of  sweetest  light,  hovers  the  Eternal 

17* 


198       THE    IIISTORY    OF   THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

Dove,  "who  has  come  to  be  to  the  Church  what 
Jesus  was  to  his  disciples  during  the  Three-and- 
Thirt}'  Years.  Beautiful  Spirit!  He  has  clothed 
the  Procession  with  his  beauty.  He  has  shed  over 
it  the  whiteness  of  his  holiness.  He,  who  fashioned 
the  Sacred  Humanity  after  his  own  model  of  Mary's 
loveliness,  has  imprinted  the  thousandfold  expres- 
sion of  the  likeness  of  Jesus  upon  the  Church.  So 
the  Procession  moves  on,  bearing  on  high  the 
straim-e  heaven-invented  vessels  of  the  Sacra- 
ments,  and  attended  with  this  amazing  equipage. 

It  fits  all  times.  It  harmonizes  with  all  sceneiy. 
Its  bravery  does  not  flaunt  the  twilight  of  the 
catacombs,  while  it  is  in  equal  keeping  with  im- 
perial courts.  It  illuminates  ages  which  else  were 
dark,  and  the  C3Te  rests  reposefully  upon  its  placid 
glories  when  false  glitter  all  around  at  once  deludes 
and  fatigues  the  sight.  With  appropriate  mag- 
nificence it  adorns  institutions  venerable  for  their 
long  antiquity,  while  with  equal  fitness  it  inaugu- 
rates the  unprecedented  novelties  of  daring  epochs, 
as  calmly  as  if  it  had  been  used  to  them  for  centu- 
ries. In  the  desert  of  the  Thebais  and  amidst  the 
temples  of  Athens,  in  the  white  squares  of  Icon i una 
and  by  the  thousand  runlets  of  Damascus,  amidst 
the  swamps  of  Bulgaria  and  the  mosques  of  Gra- 
nada, in  the  oak  sanctuaries  of  Scandinavia  or  the 
colleges  of  Paris,  in  the  market-places  of  tho 
Flemish  towns  or  by  the  missionary  rivers  of  La 
Plata,  it  is  at  once  the  light  of  the  supernatural 
ennobling  nature,  and  at  the  same  time  a  beauty 
which  seems  as  natural  as  the  gray  ruin  which  an 
aged  wood  so  well  knows  how  to  incorporate. with 
its  quiet  self.     We  have  seen  all  this;  lor  the  light 


THE    HISTORY    OF   THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD        190 

of  history  fulls  clearly  upon  it.  But  wo  trace  tho 
Procession  fur  onward,  toiling  over  the  unborn 
ages,  where  the  starry  indistinctness  of  prophecy 
reveuls  it  to  our  eyes.  There  are  times  to  come, 
which  shall  be  very  different  both  from  the  times 
that  have  been,  and  from  the  times  that  are.  The 
later  ages  of  the  Church  will  be  portentous  epochs. 
The  times  of  Antichrist  will  never  have  been 
paralleled,  although  they  may  have  been  fore- 
shadowed chiefly  by  the  primeval  centuries  of 
Scripture  history.  But  even  amid  those  mon- 
strous novelties  the  Procession  of  the  Precious 
Blood,  with  its  miraculously-preserved  Sacraments, 
will  move  on  with  the  same  ready  gracefulness, 
the  same  instinctive  pliability,  the  same  tranquil 
consciousness  of  its  mission,  which  have  distin- 
guished it  since  Pentecost.  Oh,  happy  we,  who 
shall  see  that  marvellous  future  in  peaceful  admira- 
tion from  out  the  Bosom  of  our  heavenly  Father, 
and  may  have  to  help  it  with  our  prayers! 

But  this  Procession  is  not  to  be  alwaj^s  a 
splendor  of  the  earth.  Its  eternal  sanctuary  is 
heaven.  It  will  pass  from  earth  to  heaven  through 
the  dark  portal  of  the  Valley  of  Josaphat,  the 
Valley  of  Universal  Doom.  That  will  be  the 
day  of  his  earthly  triumph,  the  crown  of  that 
other  day  of  shame  and  outpouring  upon  Calvary. 
The  lone  trumpet  of  the  archangel,  which  shall 
wake  the  dead,  is  part  of  the  pageantry  of  the 
Precious  Blood.  The  union  of  the  souls  and 
bodies  of  the  just  is  its  work.  The  transfigur- 
ing of  all  glorified  bodies  into  the  likeness  of  the 
Bod}*  of  Jesus  is  due  also  to  the  energy  of  its 
mo- its.     Out  of  the  Human  Life,  which  is  in  thai 


200       THE    HISTORY   OF   THE    TRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

Blood,  all  judgment  will  proceed.  The  Blood 
itself  will  be  the  measure  of  justice,  and  the  im- 
measurablencss  of  mercy.  All  that  will  be  magni- 
ficent in  the  vindictive  sanctity  of  God  that  day 
will  be  a  glory  of  the  Precious  Blood.  In  all  that 
"will  be  sweet,  and  gentle,  and  compassionate,  it 
will  seem  as  if  the  Precious  Blood  led  the  very  love 
of  God  captive  through  its  own  greater  capacities 
of  love.  Then  too  will  all  its  difficult  secrets 
be  told,  and  its  honor  gloriously  restored.  Its 
mysteries  of  election,  its  seeming  inequalities 
of  grace,  the  irregularities  of  its  patience,  its 
varying  prodigality,  the  apparent  caprices  of  its 
impetuosity,  its  predilection  for  particular  races 
and  climates,  its  choice  of  favorite  epochs,  its 
look  of  waywardness  with  each  individual  soul, 
the  amazing:  revelations  of  the  saving  grandeur  of 
the  Seven  Sacraments, — all  these  things  will  then 
be  made  plain,  all  will  magnify  its  justice  and 
its  lovingness,  all  will  illustrate  the  Godlike  equality 
of  its  beneficence,  and  all  will  redound  to  its  eternal 
praise.  The  Universal  Doom  will  be  nothing  else 
than  a  grand  Feast  of  the  Precious  Blood,  a  Feast 
solemnized  by  the  most  marvellous  functions; 
ushered  in  by  the  archangel's  trumpet  at  the  dead 
of  night.  The  rendering  of  their  dead  by  land 
and  sea,  the  jubilee  of  countless  resurrections,  the 
leading  in  chains  of  Satan  and  the  rebel  populace 
oi  hell,  the  superb  gathering  of  the  angels,  the 
radiant  Advent  of  the  Judge  and  his  Mother  from 
heaven,  the  silent  pomp  of  the  all-holy  judgment, 
the  ascent  at  eventide  back  to  the  palaces  of 
heaven  with  very  worlds  of  material  beauty  won 
to  God  by  the  resurrection  of  the  just, — these  are 


THE    HISTORY    OF   THE    TRECIOUS    BLOOD.        201 

Iho  sacred  pageants  of  that  supreme  Feast  of  tho 
Precious  Blood. 

After  this,  what  shall  we  dream  of  the  history 
of  the  Precious  Blood  in  heaven?     Will  it  still  be 
like  a  Procession,  though  gathered  round  the  High 
Altar  of  creation  ?     Will  it  still  have  new  work's 
to  do,  new  glories  to  contribute  to  the  Uncreated 
Majesty?     What    means   that   mysterious   laying 
down  of  the  kingdom  by  the  Sacred  Humanity, 
of  which  the  apostle  speaks  to  the  Corinthians? 
What  side  are  we  to  take  in  that  thrilling:  contro- 
versy  of  theologians   about    the    eternity   of  the 
priesthood  of  our  Lord  ?     Will  not  the  repose  of 
heaven   be  more  energetic   than    the    activity  of 
earth,  and  be  the  more  energetic  because  its  peace 
is  so  profound  ?     At  least  we  ma}'  say  so  much  as 
this: — No  work  of  God  is  a  work  done;  but  rather 
it  is  eternally  a  grand  work,  being  grandly,  and 
always  more  and  more  grandly,  done.     It  seems 
to  my  ignorance  that,  with  God,  all  his  works  will 
be,  now  that  they  have  once  begun,  like  the  Gene* 
ration  of  his  word  and  the  Procession  of  his  Spirit; 
they  wTlTnot  be  done,  but  will  be  being  done  for- 
cver.     So  perchance  there  will  be  in  the  Precious 
Blood  eternal  novelties   eternally  to  magnify  the 
glory  of  the  Uncreated  Trinitj-.     All  works  of  God 
are  completed  as  soon  as  they  are  begun  ;  and  yet 
the}-  are  also  endless  in  the   unit}'  of  their  accom- 
plishment :  and  which  of  his  works  is  invested  with 
such  royal  rights  as  is  the  Precious  Blood  ? 

Our  object  in  this  chapter  was  to  get  a  clear  idea 
of  the  history  of  the  Precious  Blood.  There  are 
some  subjects  in  which  clearness  is  everything. 
If  we  can  make  a  definite  picture  in  our  minds, 


202       THE   HISTORY   OF   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

we  have  dune  every  thing.  This  is  the  case  with 
the  history  of  the  Precious  Blood.  The  price  of 
our  redemption  is  full  of  unfathomable  mysteries. 
We  cannot  hope  to  understand  them  all,  or  indeed 
any  of  them,  fully.  That  single  divine  law,  that 
without  shedding  of  blood  there  is  no  remission  of 
sin,  is  be3'ond  our  grasp.  It  only  clothes  for  us 
with  dim  magnificence  that  gift  of  God,  which  of 
all  his  natural  gifts  we  least  understand,  the  gift 
of  life.  What  we  want  is  to  understand  so  far  as 
to  be  able  to  worship  and  to  love.  Our  best  under- 
standing of  the  Precious  Blood  is  the  sight  of  what 
it  has  done,  the  enumeration  of  its  deeds,  the  nar- 
ration of  its  history.  So  far  we  have  endeavored 
to  get  a  clear  idea  of  its  history  under  the  figure 
of  a  Procession.  Most  divine  works  liken  them- 
selves better  to  processions  than  any  thing  else. 
An}'  one,  who  has  tried  to  make  theology  clear  to 
those  who  are  not  theologians,  must  have  dis- 
covered this;  and  a  great  deal  that  is  very  remark- 
able is  implied  in  the  fact.  All  that  is  outside  of 
God  has  an  inveterate  likeness  to  that  which  is 
within.  It  is  the  genius  of  creative  acts  to  put  on 
the  semblance  of  processions.  At  the  same  time 
we  look  upon  a  procession  from  without.  Things 
seen  from  without  are  seen  more  definitely.  Their 
form  and  figure  are  more  palpable.  Hence  we 
gain  in  clearness.  But  the  outside  is  never  more 
than  a  partial  manifestation.  Besides  this,  it  is 
liable  to  erroneous  impressions  which  can  only  be 
corrected  by  some  knowledge  of  what  is  within. 
Having  asked  }"ou,  then,  to  look  at  the  history  of 
the  Precious  Blood  as  a  Procession,  I  must  now,  at 
the  risk  of  some  repetition,  ask  you  to  look  at  it 


THE    HISTORY   OF    THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.       205] 

as  a  Life,  or  *3  a  scries  of  lives..  We  shall  thus 
complete  our  study  of  this  marvellous  history,  and 
do  our  host  to  guard  against  any  such  misapprehen- 
sions as  might  interfere  with  our  devotion. 

All  God's  works  are  in  a  certain  sense  part  of  the 
life  of  God.     It  is  this  which  gives  to  creation  its 
interesl   as  well  as  iis  significance.     It   is  in   this 
way  that  time  participates  in  eternity.     The  life 
of  the  Precious  Blood  may  he  divided  into  seven 
epochs;    or  it   would  be  more  true  to  call  them 
seven  lives,  both   because  the}*  do  not  follow  each 
other  in  order  of  time,  and  also  because  they  are 
not   all    actual    periods   of   its   existence.      These 
seven  lives  are  as  follows:  the  life  of  the  Precious 
Blood  in  the  Mind  of  God  before  creation;  its  life 
of  efforts  in  the  world  from  creation  to  the  Incar- 
nation; its  life  upon  earth  during  the  Thirty-Three 
Years;  its  life  of  energy  in  the  Church  afterward, 
up  to  the  da}*  of  Doom  •  its  contemporaneous  life 
all  that  time  in  heaven;  its  contemporaneous  life 
on  earth  in  the  Blessed    Sacrament   during   that 
same  time:  and  finally  its  eternal   life  in  heaven, 
when   the  Doom  is  past.     In  all  these  lives  of  the 
Precious    Blood    there  is  a  hidden    life  which   we 
cannot  reach,  and  whose  mysteries  are  not  only 
above  our  comprehension  but  beyond  our  imagina- 
tion.    Its  union  with  the  Divinity  is  inexplicable. 
Its  peculiar  redeeming  value,  in  that  it  is  blood, 
is  also  a  secret  hidden  from  our  intelligence.     It 
represents   abysses  of  the    divine  wisdom,  which 
are  not  only  unfathomable  but  nameless.     It  bears 
upon  itself  the  imprint  of  unsuspected  perfections 
in  the  broad  majesty  of  God.     The  jubilee  of  its 
Life  is  a  height  of  creation  lost  to  our  eyes  in  tha 


204       THE    HISTORY   OF   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

burning  vicinity  of  the  uncreated.  To  this  inner- 
most inward  life  we  cannot  penetrate  ;  but  we  can 
see,  and  understand,  and  love  much  of  an  inward, 
though  less  secret,  life,  which  we  could  not  see 
when  we  regarded  the  Precious  Blood  under  the 
figure  of  a  Procession.  It  is  of  this  inward  life 
we  must  now  endeavor  to  get  some  idea. 

The  life  of  the  Precious  Blood  in  the  Mind  of 
God  from  all  eternity  is  in  one  sense  a  real  life, 
and  in  another  sense  an  unreal  one.  It  was  not  an 
actual  life.  It  was  a  life  of  predesti nation,  of 
foreseen  beauty,  of  multiplied  divine  intentions. 
It  was  a  specially  divine  invention,  if  we  may  use 
such  a  word.  It  was  an  idea  which  could  not 
have  come  to  any  mind  but  that  of  God,  and  there- 
fore the  complacency  which  it  caused  in  the 
Divine  Mind  was  immense.  It  was  a  sort  of 
second  Word  to  God,  a  created  expression  of  his 
uncreated  perfection.  It  was  part  of  the  most 
grand  and  glorious  thought  of  God,  the  Incarna- 
tion. It  was  a  most  important  part  of  it.  It  was 
also  a  specially  chosen  part,  selected  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  our  redemption,  and  for  the  re- 
storing of  a  revolted  creation  to  the  dominion  of 
its  Maker.  In  the  most  dear  and  dread  Mind  of 
God  it  was  a  fountain  always  flowing.  The  beauty 
of  its  flowing  had  been  one  of  his  unbeginning 
gladnesses.  It  was  the  fountain  which  gave  forth, 
multitudinous  and  beautiful  as  the  creation  of  the 
radiant  angels,  the  countless  predestinations  of  the 
infinitely  varying  souls  of  men.  The  mystery  of 
all  election  was  from  the  first  glassed  in  its  beam- 
ing depths.  It  was  its  spray,  which  caught  tho 
golden  light  of  eternal  things,  and  fell  down  before 


THE    HISTORY    OF    THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.        205 

the  throne,  even  as  it  is  still  falling  now,  in  starry 
showers  of  splendor.  It  was  a  mirror  too  in 
which  the  manifold  countenances  of  the  divine 
perfections  looked  always,  and  loved  to  make  their 
beauty  bearable  to  mortal  eye.  It  is  there  to  this 
day,  that  the  oppositions  in  God  are  seen  to  be 
harmonies  most  simple  and  most  worshipful.  All 
parts  of  creation  give  us  double  views  of  God, 
simultaneous  views  of  his  seeming  opposite  per- 
fections, just  as  on  the  Mount  of  Olives  the  eye 
ma}'  rest  at  will  either  on  the  Dead  Sea  or  on  the 
Hoi}'  City.  But  of  no  part  of  creation  is  this  so 
true,  or  true  in  so  high  a  sense,  as  of  the  Precious 
Blood.  Bedeeming  grace  tells  the  whole  history 
of  God,  so  far  as  it  can  be  told,  unfolds  his  cha- 
racter in  all  of  its  breadth  which  is  comprehensible, 
and  as  it  were  recites  and  magnifies  each  separate 
perfection;  and  redeeming  grace  is  the  specialty 
of  the  Precious  Blood.  Moreover,  the  Precious 
Blood  dwelt  also  in  the  Mind  of  God  as  the  type 
and  model  of  all  creation,  whether  fallen  or  un- 
fallen.  In  its  unity  lay  the  germs  of  all  created 
loveliness  and  of  all  created  variety.  Mary  was 
its  first  shadow,  its  first  reflection,  the  freshest 
copy  of  the  original.  No  wonder  then  that  it  was 
an  infinite  delight  to  the  Three  Divine  Persons. 
To  them  it  was  none  the  less  real  because  it  was 
not  yet  actually  created;  for  to  God  the  solidest 
created  substance  is  but  as  shadow  compared  with 
the  reality  of  his  ideas.  Thus  from  all  eternity 
did  the  Precious  Blood  rei'im  like  a  sovereign  thine 
in  the  adorable  complacency  of  God. 

As  it  had  lived  an  eternal  life  in  the  Mind  of 
God  before  creation,  so  also  did  it  live  a  life  of 

18 


20G       THE    HISTORY    OF   THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

visible  effects  and  real  jurisdiction  from  the  begin- 
ning  of  the  world,  before  it  had  become  itself  an 
actual  created  thingin  the  mystery  of  the  Incar- 
nation. It  was  the  Precious  Blood  which  hindered 
the  fall  of  man  from  being  as  irretrievable  as  the 
fall  of  angels  had  been.  It  did  real  work  in  every 
single  soul  which  was  created  in  those  four  thou- 
sand  years.  It  altered  their  position  in  the  world. 
It  made  the  eye  of  God  look  differently  on  them. 
It  rained  supernatural  graces  upon  their  hearts. 
It  diminished  temporal  chastisements.  Neither 
was  it  less  influential  in  the  counsels  of  God  than 
in  the  souls  of  men.  It  caused  his  compassion  to 
overspread  the  whole  earth.  It  turned  the  chroni- 
cles of  the  world  into  a  succession  of  types,  and 
shadows,  and  predictions  of  itself.  While  it  was 
itself  preparing  all  things  for  its  own  coming  and 
shedding,  it  so  controlled  all  things  that  they 
rather  seemed  to  be  a  preparation  for  itself.  It 
sounded  in  every  thing  that  God  said.  It  impressed 
its  character  upon  every  thing  that  God  did.  It 
underlay  all  heathen  life,  and  all  Hebrew  life.  It 
was  the  significance  of  the  most  significant,  and 
also  of  the  most  insignificant,  events.  It  moulded 
all  sanctity  into  an  onlooking  for  itself.  It  beauti- 
fied the  hearts  of  men  for  God  with  supernatural 
desires.  For  all  those  forty  ages  it  was  the  secret 
meaning  and  the  bidden  agent  of  the  world.  All 
that  blossomed  upon  earth  blossomed  only  because 
the  Precious  Blood  watered  the  soil  under  ground 
Who  would  not  long  to  see  it,  as  it  would  one  day 
be,  in  the  actual  Human  Heart  which  was  to  be 
its  living  chalice  ?  Even  the  patience  of  the  long- 
waiting   God    might  vouchsafe  to  yearn    for   the 


THE    HISTORY    OF    THE    PRECIOUS    HLOOD.        207 

actual  creation  of  the  Precious  Blood.  How 
sweet  then  to  him  must  have  boen  that  dear 
sanctity  of  Mary,  whose  beautiful  compulsion 
caused  the  Word  to  anticipate  his  time  ! 

But  the  hour  arrived,  and  the  Creator  became  a 
part  of  his  own  Creation.  The  Precious  Blood 
was  actually  created,  and  rose  and  fell  in  pulses 
of  true  human  life,  and  filled  with  joyous  being 
the  Sanctuary  of  the  Sacred  Heart,  and  lived  its 
life  of  Three-and-Thirty  Years  among  men.  These 
Tbree-aud-Thirty  Years  formed  in  all  true  senses 
the  longest  and  most  important  epoch  of  the  his- 
tory of  creation.  They  were  filled  with  countless 
actions,  the  value  of  each  one  of  which  was  infi- 
nite. The  vocations  stamped  upon  millions  of 
souls  came  from  those  actions  of  God  made  man. 
Their  energies  are  vigorously  ruling  the  world  at 
this  hour.  They  have  moulded  age  after  age  since 
then.  All  holiness  has  been  but  an  infinitely  di- 
versified copy  of  them.  Out  of  their  merits  the 
attributes  of  God  daily  drink  their  fill,  and  yet 
those  merits  still  abound  and  overflow.  Out  of 
their  merits  the  Sacraments  are  drawing  incalcu- 
lable exuberances  of  grace  all  day  and  night;  and 
they  are  still  full  to  the  very  brim,  and  capable  of 
saving  unnumbered  new  creations.  Out  of  the 
satisfactions  of  those  years  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
Church  has  drawn  almost  unlimited  indulgences; 
yet  no  visible  impression  has  been  made  on  their 
abundance.  Poetry  and  art  go  to  those  years  as 
to  a  school  of  heavenliest  beaut}*;  and  all  times 
and  all  minds  find  the  lessons  fresh  and  new 
Theology  sits  by  them  as  by  ab}'sses  of  divine 
wisdom,  and  one  while  is  actively  weaving  her 


208        THE    HISTORY    OF    THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

wondrous  science  out  of  them,  and  another  while, 
captivated  by  their  beauty,  forgets  to  weave,  is 
rapt  in  contemplation,  and  becomes  devotion.  Ys 
to  devotion,  those  years  are  its  very  cloister  and 
its  garden.  That  life  is  God  made  visible  to  his 
creatures  as  the  rule  of  life.  It  lays  hare  the  very 
foundations  of  morals.  It  reveals  the  possibilities 
of  human  actions,  while  it  also  paints  as  in  a  pic- 
ture the  indefinable  operations  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 
It  is  a  freshness  and  a  jo}r  to  think  that,  at  this 
hour  of  the  peaceful  dawn,  thousands  of  souls  are 
silent  before  God,  caught  in  the  sweet  snares  of 
the  beauty  of  these  earthly  }-ears  of  Jesus.  Our 
Lord  revealed  to  the  Blessed  Michael  of  Florence, 
the  Camaldolese,  how  he  longed  that  those  who 
V)ved  him  should  honor  the  Thirty-Three  Years 
with  atfectionate  minuteness.  It  has  been  the 
characteristic  devotion  of  all  the  saints.  The  souls 
that  have  been  most  drawn  to  meditate  upon  the 
attributes  of  God  have  learned  their  science  in 
that  other  science  of  the  Three-and-Thirty  Years. 
Sometimes  this  devotion  takes  special  possession 
of  a  religious  order  for  some  length  of  time.  Some- 
times it  fastens  upon  a  single  religious  house,  and 
develops  itself  with  marvellous  fertility.  This 
appears  to  have  been  the  case  with  the  Carmelite 
convent  at  Dole  in  the  seventeenth  century.  To 
Sister  Anne  of  the  Cross,  a  lay-sister,  it  was  the 
form  and  type  of  her  whole  life.  It  came  natural 
to  her  to  do  even  her  ordinary  actions  in  thirty- 
threes.  Still  more  did  her  penances  and  devotions 
take  that  shape.  When  she  was  asked  if  she  did 
not  weary  of  such  a  reiterated  devotion,  she  replied 
that;  so   far   from  it,    it  always   came   to  her  as 


THE    niSTORY    OP   THE    TRECIOUS    BLOOD.        209 

now.  The  devotion  of  Mother  Louisa  of  Jesus 
was  even  yet  more  remarkable.  She  could  hard'y 
occupy  her  soul  with  any  thing  but  the  Thirty- 
Three  Tears;  and  the  abundant  lights  she  received 
from  God  in  prayer  had  chiefly  reference  to  this 
devotion.  The  first  years  of  the  Sacred  Infancy 
were  "delicious"  to  her  soul.  She  had  an  especial 
attraction  to  contemplate  the  first  time  our  Lord 
bent  his  knees,  and  clasped  his  hands,  in  prayer  to 
the  Father.  Her  holiness  seemed  always  to  be  a 
participation  in  some  of  the  interior  dispositions 
of  Jesus  upon  earth;  and  the  characteristics  of  her 
spiritual  life,  consequent  upon  this  devotion,  were 
persevering  fervor  and  extreme  joyousness.  She 
imprinted  this  devotion  upon  the  whole  com- 
munity, and  also  upon  the  externa  who  came 
across  her. 

We  see  remarkable  traces  of  the  same  devotion 
in  our  Lord's  answer  to  the  prayers  of  Frances  of 
the  Mother  of  God,  Carmelitess  at  Dieppe,  distin- 
guished for  her  devotion  to  the  Precious  Blood. 
When  she  was  praying  for  the  soul  of  Sister 
Catherine  of  the  Angels,  she  asked  our  Lord  after 
Communion  to  apply  to  Sister  Catherine's  soul  one 
drop  of  his  Precious  Blood  in  order  to  achieve  her 
deliverance.  Our  Lord  answered,  u  I  have  given 
her  one  of  my  steps,"  thus  showing  the  value  of 
his  least  actions.  At  another  time  she  made  the 
same  prayer  for  Sister  Elizabeth  of  the  Nativity, 
asking  for  one  drop  of  the  Precious  Blood;  and 
our  Lord  answered,  "  I  will  give  her  one  of  my 
tears,  the  efficacy  of  which  is  so  great  that  it  woul  I 
turn  hell  into  paradise,  if  it  were  applied  there.' 
These  answers  seem  to  imply  a  special  devotion 
0  18* 


210      THE   HISTORY  OF  the  precious  blood. 

in  Frances  of  the  Mother  of  God  to  the  Thirty- 
Three  Years;  and  that  saintly  religious  was  one 
of  the  most  remarkable  among  the  holy  persons 
of  the  seventeenth  century. 

We  speak  very  truly  when  we  divide  the  world 
into  many  worlds.  We  talk  of  the  vegetable 
world,  and  the  mineral  world,  and  the  animal 
world.  We  even  subdivide  these  into  lesser  worlds^ 
We  go  to  the  sidereal  world  to  learn  the  immen- 
sities of  space.  Geology  opens  a  world  to  us, 
which  overshadows  us  with  its  distances  of  time. 
We  call  man  a  little  world  in  himself;  and  the  mi- 
croscopic world,  while  it  is  so  rife  with  new  aspects 
of  God,  delights  us  with  all  that  it  insinuates  of 
the  possibilities  and  likelihoods  of  the  invisible 
world  of  immaterial  and  angelic  life.  We  call 
these  by  the  name  of  worlds,  because  they  seem 
like  complete  creations  in  themselves,  and  are 
each  of  them  a  distinct  revelation  of  God,  distinct 
from  all  other  revelations  of  him,  and  yet  harmo- 
nizing with  them  all.  The}-  are  separate  shadows 
of  God.  They  are  his  wisdom  and  his  beauty,  his 
power  and  his  love,  seen  from  different  points  of 
view.  He  is  many  Creators  in  one  Creator.  AVe 
are  very  right  in  making  his  one  world  into  many 
worlds.  So  it  is  with  the  Incarnation.  The  whole 
material  universe  is  not  so  vast  as  that  one  world 
of  the  Incarnation,  nor  eapable  of  so  many  or 
such  magnificent  subdivisions.  Intellectually  or 
spiritually,  the  Thirty-Three  Years  form  a  world 
far  vaster  than  the  world  of  stars.  They  can  even 
bear  to  be  subdivided  into  many  other  worlds, 
which  are  still  spacious  enough  for  the  swift  intel- 
ligences of  angels,  as  well  as  the  rapidity  of  gkuv 


HIE    HISTORY    OF    THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.        211 

fk  J -human  minds,  to  traverse  for  eternity,  finding 
fresh  wonders  evermore.     The  Precious  Blood  has 
one  biography  in  .Mary's  Womb,  where  it  issued 
from  the  lone  sanctities  of  her  immaculate  heart. 
It  has  another  in  Bethlehem,  and  another  in  Egypt, 
and    another   in    Nazareth,   and    another   on    the 
shores  of  Gennesareth,  and  another  in  Jerusalem, 
and  another  in  Galilee.     Each  of  these  is  a  world 
beyond  the  measures  of  our  science,  a  cloister  for 
devotion,  and  yet  a  cloister  in  which  eternity  has 
ample  room.     God's  vastness  is  a  living  vastness. 
It  carries  itself  everywhere,  and  everywhere   ib 
entire  and    transcends    the    necessities  of  space. 
Each  of  these  separate  worlds  of  the  life  of  Jesiu> 
upon   earth  is   tied   by  some  occult  sympathy  to 
some  particular  attribute,  or  group  of  attributes, 
in  God.     Thus  we  learn  in  the  life  of  Mother  Mar- 
garet of  the  Blessed    Sacrament,   Carmalitess  at 
Dijon,  that  the  souls  which  are  called  to  a  special 
devotion  to  our  Lord's  Eesurrection   have  always 
a   peculiar  attraction   to  worship  the  divine  sanc- 
tity.    These  are  glimpses  of  that  glad  science  of 
the  Three-and-Thirty  Years,  which  will  be  part  of 
our  unutterable  bliss  bej-ond  the  grave.     Surely  it 
makes  the  world  seem  wearier  than  ever,  to  think 
of  the  unsuspected  grandeurs   which   the  myste- 
ries of  our  sweet  Jesus  a.re  waiting  to  pour  out 
into  our  souls,  wdien  he  has  received  us  into  his 
kingdom. 

It  is  plain,  from  what  has  been  said,  that  out 
knowledge  of  the  inward  life  of  the  Precious 
Blood  during  the  Thirty-Three  Years  must  bo 
very  superficial.  Nevertheless,  we  must  put  it 
before  ourselves  as  clearly  as  we  can.     Its  first  be- 


212        THE    HISTORY    OF   THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

ginning  was  in  the  thrills  of  beatific  joy.  We  shall 
see  reasons  afterward  for  carefully  noting  this. 
The  beginning  of  the  Human  Life  of  Jesus  was 
not  gradual.  It  had  no  dawn.  Its  very  union  with 
the  Divinity  rendered  this  impossible.  It  broke 
out  of  nothingness  into  the  blaze  of  conscious  and 
blessed  ecstasy.  It  saw  God  as  not  even  Mary 
sees  him  now.  It  saw  him,  went  out  of  sight  of 
all  creation  toward  comprehending  him,  enjoyed 
him  as  not  all  heaven  after  the  Doom  will  enjoy 
him,  and  adored  him  as  no  fabulous  number  of 
possible  worlds  could  ever  have  adored  him.  This 
was  the  first  pulse  of  the  Precious  Blood.  The 
very  first  throb  had  in  it  an  incalculable  immen- 
sity of  gladness.  Out  of  its  first  moment  all  worlds 
might  be  gladdened  beyond  their  power  of  bearing 
gladness.  Save  the  Uncreated  Jubilee,  the  sweet 
Spirit  of  the  Father  and  the  Son,  never  was  there 
jubilee  like  that  of  the  Precious  Blood  in  its  begin- 
ning. Yet  from  that  hour  the  jubilee  has  never 
ceased  ;  it  has  never  lessened  ;  it  has  never  changed. 
Its  pulses  are  not  tides.  They  imply  no  vicissi- 
tudes. They  betoken  only  an  equable  impetuosity 
of  immutable  delight.  The  gladness  which  flashed 
like  lightning  out  of  the  eyes  of  the  Infant  into 
the  heart  of  Mary  was  unabated  when  the  same 
eyes  drooped  languidly  toward  her  upon  Calvary. 
The  blessedness  which  broke  forth  like  a  creation 
of  light  in  the  glory  of  the  Resurrection  had  never 
left  the  Sacred  Heart  even  during  the  Way  of  the 
Cross.  But,  with  the  beatific  joy,  the  Precious 
Blood  had  all  other  joys  as  well.  That  Human 
Life  was  a  joy  in  itself,  a  joy  in  its  divine  union, 
independently  of  its  vision  of  God.     It  was  a  jcy 


THE    HISTORY    OF   THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD.        213 

in  the  love  and  possession  of  so  sweet  a  Mother. 
It  was  a  jcy  in  the  unearthly  tranquillity  of  Jo- 
seph's deep,  loving,  adoring  heart.  It  was  a  joy 
in  the  jubilee  of  the  worshipping  angels.  It  was 
a  joy  in  the  very  bitterness  of  its  redeeming  woes, 
and  it  was  a  joy  in  the  intensity  of  its  own  loves 
of  God  and  men. 

But  it  was  a  life  also  of  colossal  sorrows,  even 
though  the}-  abated  not  the  joy.     Never  did  blood 
of  man  throb  with  such  excesses  of  anguish  as  the 
Precious  Blood  of  our  most  dear  Redeemer.     Its 
sorrows   were   lifelong.     Their  excesses  exceeded 
all  the  tortures  of  the  martyrs.     There  was  never 
a  moment  which  was  not  occupied  with  sorrow. 
The  jubilee  never  commingled  with  the  woe,  nor 
tempered  it,  nor  compensated  for  it.    Kay,  rather, 
all  joys  intensified  the  sorrows.     Joy,  surely,  is  in 
itself  a  diviner  thing  than  sorrow;  for  there  can 
be  no  sorrow  in  the  Ever-blessed.    But  sorrow  was 
more  human;  and  therefore  it  was  chosen  as  the 
instrument  of  man's  redemption;  and  thus  to  us  it 
beeomes  more  divine,  because  it  brings  God  to  us 
and  raises  us  up  to  God.     Thus  sorrow  was  more 
natural  to  the  Precious  Blood.     It  was  a  life  more 
congenial  to  its  nature.     Moreover,  it  was  its  offi- 
cial life.     For  by  sorrow  it  was  to  accomplish  its 
redeeming  work.    Its  shedding  was  to  be  not  only 
the  consummation  of  our  Lord's  sufferino-  but  the 
chosen  suffering,  in  which  precisely  the  work  of 
redemption  was  to  lie.     Jesus — thrice  blessed  be 
his  most  dear  Name  ! — is  all  our  own,  neither  can 
we  spare  any  thing  of  him.     Yet  it  was  not  pre- 
cisely his  Soul  which  was  to  redeem  us,  nor  tho 
Passion  of  his  Bcdy  which  was  to  be  exactly  out 


214   THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  TRECIOUS  BLOOD. 

expiation.  It  was  the  shedding  of  his  Blood  which 
was  to  cleanse  us  from  our  sins.  The  remedy  of 
the  Fall  was  precisely  in  the  Saviour's  Blood.  All 
the  sorrows  of  his  life  grew  up  to  the  shedding  of 

his  Blood,  and  were  crowned  by  it;  and  his  shed- 
ding the  last  few  drops  of  it  after  he  was  dead  was 
significant  of  the  work  it  had  to  do.  The  Soul,  and 
the  Body,  and  the  Blood  lay  separate;  and  the 
sacrifice  was' thus  complete. 

The  life  of  the  Precious  Blood  was  also  a  life  of 
great  secrecy.  This  is  the  invariable  characteristic 
of  all  divine  things.  The  more  thej'  have  been  tho 
objects  of  God's. eternal  complacency  in  his  ever- 
blessed  Mind,  the  more  instinctively  do  they  affect 
secrecy.  God  is  a  God  who  hides  himself"  and  who 
even  manifests  himself  by  means  of  new  conceal- 
ments. All  holiness  has  the  same  love  of  secrecy 
imprinted  on  it  as  the  seal  of  God.  We  should 
have  imagined  that  the  sdadness  of  the  Precious 
Blood  would  have  made  it  prone  to  manifest  itself, 
and  to  be  forever  manifesting  itself  out  of  its  exu- 
berant  love  of  souls.  We  might  have  supposed  that 
its  intense  desire  to  shed  itself  would  have  given  it 
a  character  of  publicit}*.  Yet,  as  God  is  so  secret 
that  St.  Austin  ventured  to  name  him  "the  most 
secret  Being,"  and  at  the  same  time  is  also  un- 
speakably communicative,  so  is  it  with  the  Pre- 
cious Blood.  It  hid  itself  all  through  the  Thirty- 
Three  Years,  and  it  hid  itself  most  effectually  at 
the  moment  it  was  being  shed.  It  hid  itself  on 
the  roots  of  the  olive-trees  of  Gethsemane,  only 
making  the  brown  wood  a  little  ruddier.  It  sank: 
into  the  thirsty  ground  of  Calvary.  It  hastened 
to  mingle  with  the  street-dust  of  Jerusalem.      It 


THE    HISTORY    OF   THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD         215 

clung  to  the  soles  of  men's  shoes,  so  that  they 
might  not  notice  it.  In  like  manner  it  works  be- 
hind a  veil  at  this  hour.  It  works  in  Sacraments, 
in  invisible  communications  of  grace,  in  viewless 
contacts  of  divine  things  with  the  soul.  It  is  only 
when  God  opens  the  eyes  of  favored  souls  that  it 
is  seen  working  as  truly  the  Blood  of  Jesus.  Such 
a  favored  soul  was  Frances  of  the  Mother  of  God, 
Carmelitess  of  Dieppe.  When  she  held  her  chap- 
ters of  faults,  and  the  nuns  accused  themselves  of 
their  short-comings  of  observance,  she  saw  Jesus 
by  her  side,  touching  those  who  accused  them- 
selves with  simplicity  and  frankness  with  a  drop 
of  his  Blood,  and  leaving  untouched  those  who  ac- 
cused themselves  unsimply  and  without  any  inte- 
rior self-condemnation.  On  Palm  Sunday,  during 
a  jubilee,  she  saw  our  Lord  apply  to  the  souls  of 
the  nuns  at  Communion  the  grace  of  the  jubilee 
by  means  of  his  Blood;  and  he  said  to  her,  "To 
persons  in  the  world  I  give  my  Blood  by  drops, 
but  here  I  give  it  in  profusion."  One  year,  on  tho 
feast  of  the  Circumcision,  our  Lord  showed  him- 
self to  her  lying  in  the  manger,  bathed  in  blood 
and  the  blood  dropping  from  him  into  a  vessel. 
Her  soul  became  "  deliciously  occupied"  with  the 
dignity  and  price  of  that  adorable  Blood,  and  she 
cried  out,  in  a  transport  of  rapture,  "Ah,  my 
Lord !  that  was  enough  to  redeem  the  world,  with- 
out so  much  suffering."  He  then  vouchsafed  to 
reveal  to  her  that  he  had  offered  the  Blood  of  the 
Circumcision  to  the  Father  for  two  objects  espe- 
cially. The  first  was  to  satisfy  for  the  sins  which 
had  been  committed  since  creation  and  before  the 
Incarnation  ;    and  the   second   was  to  obtain  foi 


SlG       THE    HISTORY   OF   THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

bouIs  the  grace  of  making  a  right  use  of  his  mys- 
teries. Thus  it  has  been  in  numberless  revelations, 
that,  when  the  realities  of  grace  have  been  shown 
to  favored  souls,  they  have  been  shown  as  actual 
contacts  of  the  Precious  Blood,  just  as  supernatu- 
ral favors  at  Communion  have  so  often  taken  the 
form  of  filling  the  mouths  of  the  saints  with  blood, 
which  had  a  sweetness  beyond  all  known  earthly 
tastes;  and  the  way  in  which  it  veils  its  operations 
is  but  a  continuance  of  the  secrecy  of  the  Three- 
and-Thirty  Years. 

The  life  of  the  Precious  Blood  on  earth  was  also, 
and  eminently,  a  life  of  love,  or,  as  we  may  rather 
call  it,  a  life  of  many  loves.  It  was  such  a  human 
love  of  God  as  immeasurably  surpassed  the  collect- 
ive love  of  Mary,  angels,  and  men.  It  was  a  joy- 
ous and  yet  a  reverential  love  of  Mary,  such  as  far 
outdid  all  the  united  devotion  and  enthusiastic  af- 
fection of  the  angels  and  the  saints  for  their  mother 
and  their  queen.  It  was  such  a  love  of  men,  and 
particularly  of  men's  souls,  as  the  hearts  of  all 
mankind  could  not  hold  if  it  Avere  divided  amomr 
them  and  their  hearts  were  enlarged  to  the  ma<r- 
nificent  capacities  of  apostles'  hearts.  Souls  were 
its  attraction,  its  passion.  Its  genius  fastened  upon 
them  as  its  portion  and  its  prey.  Its  choice,  its 
work,  its  food,  its  rest,  its  joy, — all  were  in  human 
souls.  The  thought  of  it  had  won  grace  for  soids 
before  it  was  actually  created.  The  figures  of  it 
cleansed  souls.  The  shedding  of  it  was  the  life  ot 
nouls.  It  became  almost  omnipresent,  that  it  might 
embrace  all  souls.  It  cast  itself  into  Sacraments, 
that  it  might  reach  souls  by  a  quicker  road,  in  more 
diversified  ways,  with  a  more  infallible  operation, 


THE    HISTORY   OP   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD.        217 

ami  with  a  more  abundant  success.  Then,  as  if 
discontented  even  with  the  magnificence  of  the 
Sacraments,  it  threw  itself  into  Indulgences  and 
Jubilees.  It  made  men  after  its  own  likeness,  and 
called  them  Apostles.  An  apostolic  call  is  a  voca- 
tion of  the  Precious  Blood.  The  mild  judgments 
of  moral  theology  arc  but  the  casuistry  of  the  Pre- 
cious Blood.  Who  can  think  unmoved  of  the  ten- 
derness and  of  the  impetuosity  of  this  soul-loving 
Blood  ?  All  sweet,  eloquent  patience  in  the  Con- 
fessional is  only  the  impassioned  self-control  of  the 
Precious  Blood.  All  true,  simple,  evangelical 
preaching  is  only  the  uplifted  voice  of  the  Pre- 
cious Blood.  Let  me  tell  you  again  that  old  story 
of  the  Blessed  Angela  of  Foligno.  She  saw  our 
Lord  in  vision  embracing  some  Franciscan  Friars, 
and  pressing  them  with  a  yearning  fondness  to  his 
wounded  side.  He  pressed  them  so  closely  to  him 
that  their  lips  were  tinged  with  his  Blood,  some 
slightly,  some  very  much  •  and  some  had  their 
mouths  all  ruddy  with  it,  so  tightly  had  he  pressed 
them  against  the  wound.  He  told  her  that  these 
were  his  preachers,  and  that  the  word  of  the  Gos- 
pel only  went  with  power  to  the  soul  when  it 
passed  over  lips  that  were  stained  with  his  Pre 
cious  Blood.  Ah,  we  poor  preachers  !  we  have 
need  to  hang  our  heads  at  this  tale;  and  yet  it  i.- 
one  full  of  good  cheer  to  our  humility,  if  only  ovu 
humility  be  generous  and  brave. 

Finally,  the  life  of  the  Precious  Blood  on  earta 
was  a  life  of  incomparable  sanctity.  It  was  made 
up  of  the  most  gigantic  operations  of  grace.  We 
cannot  approach  to  them  even  in  thought.  Let  it 
Buffice  to  say  that  they  were  multitudinous  anu 

19 


218        THE    HISTORY    OF   THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

manifold  all  day,  and  that  sleep  by  night  never 
interrupted  them;  and  yet  that  the  least  of  them 
transcended  in  spiritual  beauty  and  dignity  the 
gorgeous  mystery  of  the  Immaculate  Conception. 
It  was  a  life  made  up  also  of  interior  dispositions 
of  such  vast  heroism,  of  such  fiery  love,  of  such 
majestic  intensity,  of  such  delicate  complications, 
as  have  no  parallel  in  any  other  created  holiness. 
What  can  we  imagine  of  them,  when  it  is  sober  to 
say  of  them  that  the  least  and  most  transient  of 
them  surpassed  all  the  dispositions  of  Mary's  Do- 
lors? and,  after  the  virtues  of  Jesus,  are  not  those 
the  most  colossal  sanctities  that  were  ever  known 
on  earth  or  ever  crowned  in  heaven?  In  all  these 
operations  of  grace,  in  all  these  inward  disposi- 
tions, in  all  the  glorious  heroisms  of  the  Sacred 
Humanity,  the  Precious  Blood  was  ever  minister- 
ing, with  most  special  intention,  to  those  two  kin- 
dred Attributes  of  God,  his  Dominion  and  his  Mag- 
nificence. Did  I  not  speak  truly  when  I  said  that 
the  Threc-and-Thirty  Years  were  an  epoch  of  secu- 
lar duration,  a  kind  of  eternity  of  time? 

The  life  of  the  Precious  Blood  upon  earth  after 
the  Ascension  was,  as  we  have  seen,  in  one  sense 
an  actual  life,  and  in  another  sense  not  an  actual 
life.  We  have  lessons  also  to  learn  from  this,  or, 
at  least,  fresh  proofs  of  the  character  and  disposi- 
tion of  the  Precious  Blood.  Its  life  upon  earth 
may  be  divided  into  natural  and  supernatural,  or 
into  direct  and  indirect,  or  into  religious  and  secu- 
lar, according  to  the  point  of  view  from  which  we 
may  regard  it.  For  our  purpose  no  strict  division 
is  necessary.  It  is  enough  for  us  to  speak  of  it  as 
it   concerns    the   world    and   as    it    concerns   the 


THE    HISTORY    OF    THE    TRECIOUS   BLOOD.        219 

Church.  On  the  first  head  \vc  need  not  say  much, 
as  we  have  already  seen  in  the  second  chapter 
what  the  world  would  have  been  without  the 
Piecious  Blood.  Nevertheless,  there  is  still  some- 
thing- to  be  said.  There  is  not,  and  has  not  been 
si  nee  Christianity  was  preached,  a  state  or  govern- 
ment which  has  not  been  materially  influenced  by 
the  Precious  Blood.  History  shows  us  that  there 
is  an  obvious  unity  of  life  in  states,  of  which  they 
themselves  are  scarcely  ever  conscious,  or  at  least 
conscious  only  during  transient  intervals.  They 
do  God's  work  without  knowing  it.  They  servo 
the  Church  at  the  moment  they  think  they  are 
thwarting  it.  After  centuries  of  self-praise  and 
pride  they  lose  their  positions  and  sink  into  some- 
thing narrower  and  smaller,  and  find  that  they 
have  all  along  been  the  unintelligent  and  uninten- 
tional servants  of  the  Holy  See.  Sometimes  indi- 
vidual statesmen  make  an  impression  on  their  ago 
and  countiy;  and  it  is  curiously  borne  out  by  his- 
tory that  in  this  case  the  impression  is  for  the 
most  part  adverse  to  religion  at  the  time,  but 
turns  out  to  be  for  its  advantage  in  the  end. 
More  often  the  state  makes  the  statesman,  who 
follows  rather  than  leads,  while  the  state  itself  is 
filled  with  a  life  it  does  not  understand,  and,  like 
a  tree  growing  in  a  particular  position,  works  out 
its  instincts  unconsciously.  In  both  cases  it  is 
the  interests  of  the  Precious  .Blood  which  are 
found  at  last  to  have  presided  over  the  revolutions 
of  states. 

Civilizations  and  customs  are  also  modified  and 
controlled  by  its  genius,  character,  and  influence. 
Its  work  in  individual  souls  is  in  the  aggregate 


220        THE    HISTORY    OF    THE    VRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

such  an  enormous  power,  that  it  cannot  help 
making  itself  felt  in  all  social  movements.  Tc 
literature  it  has  contributed  fresh  forms  and  new 
ideas.  In  art  it  has  been  a  fountain  of  beauty  and 
inspiration  far  surpassing  any  other  both  in  the 
quantity  and  the  excellence  of  its  production. 
Philanthropy  owes  more  to  it  than  it  will  acknow- 
ledge, and  morality  has  hardly  any  independent 
practical  life  without  it.  In  what  is  called  the 
progress  of  humanity  it  has  been  at  once  a  curb 
to  restrain,  and  a  rudder  to  guide,  a  light  to  see 
by,  and  a  compensation  enabling  us  to  endure. 

But,  while  we  must  never  forget  that  the  outer 
world  is  always  owing  all  that  is  good  in  it  to  tho 
influence  of  the  Precious  Blood,  we  are  rather 
concerned  with  its  life  in  the  Church.  We  have 
already  seen  that  the  laboratories  of  its  life  are  in 
the  wonderful  Sacraments,  which  are  the  living 
present  actions  of  Christ,  the  actual  going  on  of 
the  Thirty-Three  Years  on  earth.  We  have  seen 
that  all  processes  of  justification  and  of  sanctifica- 
tion  are  in  reality  operations  of  the  Precious  Blood. 
We  have  remembered  its  ubiquitous  activity  in 
those  veiled  triumphs  of  death-bed  graces,  which 
will  rank  among  the  sweetest  astonishments  of 
heaven.  But  its  principal  and  most  characteristic 
occupation  upon  earth  is  Conversion-  and,  as  its 
energy  in  the  Church  is  so  broad  and  so  incessant 
that  it'  is  difficult  to  comprehend  it  in  one  view 
without  becoming  vague,  we  may  select  this  par- 
ticular occupation  to  which  it  is  so  specially  ad- 
dicted, as  a  favorable  illustration  of  its  spirit  and 
method,  and  as  conveying  to  us  by  a  single  instance 
the  most  faithful  idea  of  its  life  upon  earth  since 


TIIF.    HISTORY    OF   THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.       221 

the  Ascension.  But,  while  we  put  forward  Ilia 
phenomenon  of  Conversion  as  the  best  exponent 
of  the  normal  life  of  the  Precious  Blood,  we  must 
not  forget  that  it  is  only  one  out  of  many  spe- 
cimens of  its  fertility.  Let  us  then  think  of  what 
is  implied  in  the  Conversion  of  a  soul,  and  what 
that  agent  must  be  like  whose  main  and  favorite 
occupation  is  Conversion. 

It  is  not  possible  to  exaggerate  the  importance 
of  the  Conversion  of  a  Bingle  soul.  As  single  souls, 
we  feel  lost  in  an  overwhelming  multitude.  We 
are  nobodies  in  the  great  grand  world,  and  in  the 
huge  overmastering  progress  of  human  destinies. 
If  we  died,  we  might  leave  a  temporary  ache  in 
some  few  hearts,  and  that  would  be  all.  But  we 
are  never  lost,  we  arc  never  nobodies,  in  the  dear 
world  of  God's  all-seeing  love  and  all-loving  pro- 
vidence. According  to  his  standards,  an  empire  is 
a  less  thing  than  a  single  soul.  The  empire  will 
not  last  so  long,  nor  can  it  effect  so  much.  Even 
upon  earth  the  divine  importance  of  its  history 
lies  simply  in  the  amount  and  kind  of  its  influence 
upon  single  souls.  In  the  next  world,  the  truer 
world,  it  has  no  representative.  It  is  as  though  it 
had  never  been,  or  at  least  it  is  a  mere  item  in  the 
sanctification  of  the  saved.  The  fortunes  of  earth's 
most  gorgeous  empire  cast  no  shadow  upon  heaven. 
God  appears  to  make  fewer  arrangements  for  em- 
pires than  for  souls;  and,  when  he  occupies  him- 
self with  nations,  it  is  for  the  sake  of  souls.  Tho 
degree  and  manner  of  divine  interference  are  less 
for  an  empire  than  for  a  soul.  Heaven's  interest 
inan  empire  is  less  than  its  interest  in  a  soul.  The 
consequences  of  an  empire  are  less  than   the  con 

19* 


222         THE    HISTORY    OF    THE    PRECIOUS    15LOOI). 

sequences  of  a  soul.     This  is  the  estimate  which 
the  Precious  Blood  takes  of  .a  single  soul. 

Now  let  us  look  at  the  machinery  of  Conversion. 
What  is  wanted,  what  is  actually  put  forth,  to 
convert  a  man  in  mortal  sin?  The  Three  Divine 
Persons  work  as  one  in  all  external  works.  Yet 
the  Father  represents  in  our  imperfect  views  the 
power  of  the  Godhead;  and  this  power  is  wanted 
to  convert  a  soul.  Nothing  short  of  omnipotence 
can  do  it.  Mary's  sceptre  only  reaches  so  far 
through  the  omnipotence  of  prayer.  When  I  think 
of  enormous  power,  I  think  of  St.  Michael;  but  he 
is  too  weak  to  convert  a  sinner:  or  of  the  choir 
of  Thrones;  but  the  magnificence  of  their  repose 
cannot  cleanse  from  sin,  or  infuse  peace  into  a 
sinful  soul.  Secondly,  it  needs  the  wisdom  of  the 
Son.  The  Cherubim  are  very  wise,  and  our  dearest 
mother  Mary  is  a  very  abyss  of  science.  But  the}' 
could  not  have  invented  the  needful  ingenuities 
for  the  Conversion  of  a  sinner.  Indeed,  they  are 
so  far  from  being  able  to  devise  them,  that  they 
find  it  hard  to  understand  them,  and  they  :ire 
adoring  them  to  this  hour  with  unabated  astonish- 
ment. Then,  also,  it  needs  the  love  of  the  Holy 
Ghost.  The  magnificent  Seraphim  live  in  the 
divine  fires,  and  are  themselves  vast  and  huge 
abysses  of  burning  love.  Yet  they  are  but  sparks 
from  the  furnace  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  His  love  is 
simply  incomprehensible.  They  can  but  fall  down 
and  tremble  before  the  unutterable  conflagrations 
of  his  uncreated  fires.  Many  things  are  hard  to 
understand  in  Cod.  but,  most  of  all,  the  excesses 
of  his  love.  Yet  this  power  of  the  Father,  this 
wisdom  of  the  Son,   and   this  love  of   the  Holv 


THE    HISTORY    OF    THE    1KKCIOUS    m.OOD         223 

Ghost,  this  threefold  compassion  of  t he  Most  Holy 
Trinity,  have  been  engaged  for  the  Conversion  of 
souls  through  the  exquisite  pleadings  and  beautiful 
constraints  of  the  Precious  Blood. 

It  is  part  of  the  ordinance  of  our  Blessed  Lord 
that  the  prayers  and  dolors  Qf  his  Mother  should 
also  go  to  the  Conversion  of  a  soul.  But  the  power 
of  those  prayers  and  the  merit  of  those  dolors 
came  from  the  Precious  Blood.  The  whole  of 
Mary,  and  all  the  benignity  of  her  queendom,  and 
all  the  glory  of  her  exaltation,  and  all  the  splendor 
of  her  graces,  and  all  the  mystery  of  her  mother- 
hood, are  beeause  of  the  Precious  Blood.  No  part 
of  creation  has  been  made  so  white  by  its  redness 
as  her  unspotted  heart.  She  is  the  creature  of 
the  Precious  Blood,  its  daughter,  its  mother,  its 
servant,  and  its  queen.  The  angels  of  heaven  must 
be  stirred  for  the  Conversion  of  a  soul.  Numberless 
ministries,  each  one  of  which  is  a  heavenly  wonder, 
are  put  forth  by  them.  They  plead  in  heaven. 
They  visit  earth.  They  do  Mary's  bidding.  They 
conspire  with  the  saints.  They  procure  the  Sacra? 
ments.  They  prepare.  They  co-operate.  They 
confirm.  They  warn.  They  defend.  They  cross 
caeh  other  betwixt  earth  and  heaven,  like  royal 
messengers  on  the  highways  in  time  of  war.  It  is 
the  Precious  Blood  which  has  merited  these  minis- 
tries for  the  soul.  It  is  devotion  to  the  Precious 
Blood  which  fills  the  angelic  realms  with  jubilee 
when  a  sinner  is  converted.  Our  Lord  loved  to 
think  of  that  jubilee,  and  spoke  of  it  with  pleased 
affirmation  and  tenderest  delight. 

The  Conversion  of  a  soul  requires  that  a  mul- 
titude of  circumstances  should  be  providentially 


221         THE    HISTORY    OF   THE    TRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

ordered,  and  times,  persons,  and  places  made  to  fit 
each  other  in  some  one  peculiar  way.  This  har- 
mony of  circumstances  is  providence  doing  honor 
to  the  Precious  Blood.  There  must  he,  ordinarily 
speaking,  the  knowledge  of  the  Gospel;  and  the 
bringing  of  this  to  the  neighborhood  of  each  soul 
is  a  distinct  act  of  love  on  the  part  of  the  Precious 
Blood.  Much  has  to  he  merited  for  the  soul  by  the 
good  works  of  others;  and  no  works  merit  except 
through  the  Precious  Blood.  The  goodness  of 
others  has  to  influence  the  soul;  and  goodness  only 
influences  because  the  Precious  Blood  makes  it  so 
attractive.  The  moment  of  contrition  is  the  mo- 
ment of  revolution  in  the  soul;  it  Avas  a  moment 
foreseen  and  foreordained  from  all  eternity  in  view 
of  the  Precious  Blood.  It  is  part  of  God's  eternal 
complacency  in  that  redeeming  Blood.  The  Sacra- 
ments, which  are  the  resplendent  instruments  of 
Conversion,  ar.e  the  application  of  the  Precious 
Blood  to  the  soul  in  a  manner  which  seems  to  in- 
tensity that  which  is  already  infinite.  The  actual 
shedding  of  the  Blood  on  Calvarv  was  the  far-off 
preparation  for  this  individual  Conversion.  The 
revival  of  old  merits,  and  the  restoration  of  for- 
feited rights  to  reward,  are  only  instances  of  the 
energy  of  the  Precious  Blood,  and  of  the  complete- 
ness with  which  it  does  its  work.  This  vitality  of 
merits,  this  power  of  a  resurrection  in  them  when 
mortal  sin  has  killed  them,  is  only  because  it  was 
the  Precious  Blood  which  made  them  merits  at  the 
first.  Indulgences  are  the  loving  ministers  of  the 
Precious  Blood,  which  understand  its  ways  and 
enter  into  its  spirit,  and  so  go  about  picking  up  the 
fragments  that  remain  after  the  Sacraments  have 


THE    HISTORY    OF   THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD.       225 

had  their  fill.  The  joy  of  God,  of  Mary,  of  tho 
angels,  of  the  saints,  of  the  holy  souls  in  purgatory, 
and  of  God's  priests  and  servants  upon  earth,  is 
only  an  emanation  of  that  joy  of  which  the  Pre- 
cious Blood  is  the  universal  and  incessant  fountain. 
Moreover,  all  through  this  process  of  Conversion 
there  is  a  marvellous  hiding,  a  divine  extenuation, 
of  sin's  affront  against  God,  which  can  only  he 
because  it  is  inundated  by  the  Precious  Blood, 
while  at  the  same  time  there  is  such  a  revelation 
of  the  sinfulness  of  sin  as  can  only  he  made  by 
that  same  Blood,  which  is  the  beautiful  reparation 
of  God's  sanctit}'. 

By  night  and  by  da}-  all  over  the  earth  is  the 
Precious  Blood  engaged  in  this  occupation  of  Con- 
version.    It  is  going  on  in   thousands  of  souls  at 
once.     In  all  of  them  is  all  this  supernatural  ma- 
chinery at  work,  ami  at  work  all  at  once.    In  each 
case  there  is  the  same  apparently  exclusive  con- 
centration of  divine  love   upon    the  single    soul, 
which  makes  all  God's  dealings  with  us  seem  so 
inexpressibly  tender.     This  has  been  going  on  for 
centuries.     It  will  go  on  still  for  raany  centuries: 
for  the  end  of  the  world  does  not  yet  seem  near, 
unless  its  not  seeming  so  be  indeed  a  sign  that  it  is 
so.     Who  can  mistake  the  character  and  office  of 
the  Precious  Blood,  when  he  studies  this  work  of 
Conversion  which  is  its  work  of  predilection  ?     It 
is  the  one  question  of  life  and  death  with  each  one 
of  us,  whether  this  change  has  b^en  wrought  in 
us,  either  at  our  baptism  or  since.     Who  then  can 
calculate  the  debt  he  owes  to  the  Precious  Blood  ? 
Is  there  a  joy  in  life  more  invigorating  than  an 
overwhelming    sense   of    our    obligations   to   the 
r 


22G   THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  TRECIOUS  BLOOD. 

Blood  of  Jesus?  Who  docs  not  long  to  pay  him 
back  in  love,  and  long  all  the  more  ardently  tho 
more  he  sees  how  the  greatness  of  his  debt  makes 
the  payment  of  it  impossible?  To  be  in  debt  to 
God  is  the  light-heartedness  of  life.  The  grace  ho 
gives  us  is  even  sweeter  to  us  as  an  obligation 
than  as  a  gift.  The  weight  of  our  obligations  is 
the  delightful  pressure  of  his  love;  and  the  sweet 
feeling  of  it  is  in  proportion  to  the  weight. 

This  leads  me  to  another  matter,  on  which,  for 
the  sake  of  our  dearest  Lord,  I  would  that  I  could 
speak  wTith  more  than  usual  persuasion.  We  are 
considering  the  life  of  the  Precious  Blood  in  the 
Church.  Its  supernatural  works  of  benignity  are 
wrought  in  the  Church  and  through  the  Church. 
The  Church  is  in  an  especial  manner,  and  in  strict 
scriptural  phraseology,  the  creation  of  the  Pre- 
cious Blood.  It  is  its  visible  edifice,  the  house  it 
has  built  for  itself,  the  home  where  it  hides  itself, 
the  bride  it  has  espoused  and  then  dowered  with 
its  Sacraments,  the  mother  of  its  children,  the 
monument  it  has  erected  and  hung  round  with 
trophies  of  its  victories.  It  is  the  living  palaco 
of  the  Pi*ecious  Blood,  built  with  the  Blood  itself 
as  with  cement,  and  beautified  by  it  as  by  the 
brightness  of  very  heaven.  It  is  the  life  and  love 
of  the  Precious  Blood,  made  visible  to  men  by  an 
institution  invented  by  God  himself,  and  which 
copies  upon  earth  the  order  and  the  hierarchies  of 
heaven.  Hence  it  follows  that  all  true  devotion 
to  the  Precious  Blood  must  be  accompanied  by  a 
hearty  devotion  to  the  Church.  Heresies,  which 
have  done  despite  to  the  Precious  Blood  by  nar- 
rowing its  sphere  or  by  limiting  its  prodigality, 


THE    HISTORY    OF   THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD.        227 

liavo  also  been  distinguished  by  a  want  of  loj-alty 
to  the  Church.  In  all  times  Ave  have  Been  that 
those  who  take  a  rigid  view  about  the  easiness  of 
salvation  also  take  a  lax  view  about  the  exclusive 
privileges  of  communion  with  the  Church  ;  while, 
on  the  other  hand,  those  who  dwell  more  strongly 
on  the  doctrine  of  exclusive  salvation  in  the  true 
Church  are  also  most  given  to  magnify  the  abun- 
dance of  redeeming  grace,  within  its  pale.  At  first 
sight  it  seems  a  strange  inconsistency,  that  those 
who  make  it  hard  to  be  saved  in  the  Church 
should  make  it  comparatively  easy  to  be  saved  out 
of  it.  It  is  indeed  curious  that  such  men  should 
regard  what  they  must  at  the  least  admit  to  be 
one  of  God's  chief  means  of  grace,  namely,  the 
Church,  as  adding  very  little  to  the  chances  of  a 
man's  salvation.  If  two  men,  born  in  one  country, 
the  one  in  the  Church  with  all  the  Sacraments,  the 
other  not  in  the  Church  at  all,  have,  as  some  say, 
nearly  the  same  chances  of  salvation,  it  must  fol- 
low, either  that  God  has  one  standard  for  the  for- 
giveness of  sin  in  the  one  case,  and  another  in  the 
other,  which  is  surely  an  impiety,  or  that  the  Sa- 
craments are  of  very  little  consequence  or  efficacy, 
which  would  be  hardl}7  a  less  impiety.  That  Jesus, 
God  and  Man,  should  be  truly  received  in  the 
Blessed  Sacrament,  and  yet  that  this  should  not 
make  simply  an  incalculable  difference  between 
the  religious  state  of  those  who  enjoy  this  privilege 
and  of  those  who  do  not,  is  a  supposition  highly 
dishonorable  to  our  Blessed  Lord.  Yet  so  it  is 
that  a  light  esteem  of  the  overwhelming  advan- 
tages of  the  Church,  and  a  want  of  apprecia- 
tion of  the  Sacraments,  go  along  with  the  most 


228     Tin:  history  of  the  trecious  blood. 

rii>id  and  harsh  views  regarding  the  easiness  of 
salvation  and  the  number  of  the  saved;  and  these 
errors  go  together  for  want  of  a  true  and  tender 
devotion  to  the  Precious  Blood.  The  doctrine  of 
the  Sacraments  is  the  touchstone  of  all  the  theo- 
logy of  the  day.  lie  who  constantly  and  de- 
voutly adores  the  Precious  Blood  of  Jesus  will 
not  think  lightly  of  the  Sacraments  which  are 
the  vases  to  hold  it  and  the  channels  to  convey 
it.  He  who  magnifies  the  glory  of  the  Sacra- 
ments will  make  much  of  the  Church  whose  espe- 
cial possession  and  characteristic  they  are.  It  is 
thus,  through  the  doctrine  of  the  Sacrament,  that 
the  apparent  contradiction  of  making  salvation 
very  difficult  in  the  Church,  and  yet  holding 
that  the  being  out  of  the  Church  docs  not  put 
a  man  at  such  a  great  disadvantage  as  regards 
salvation,  comes  from  a  want  of  devotion  to  the 
Precious  Blood. 

Hence  it  follows  that  all  lovers  of  the  Precious 
Blood  should  have  a  cordial  devotion  to  the  Church, 
and  should  immensely  honor,  revere,  and  prize  the 
Sacraments.  Scripture  calls  the  Church  the  Body 
of  Christ;  and  the  chief  of  the  Sacraments  is  pre- 
cisely the  Body  of  Christ;  and  St.  Paul  speaks 
wonderful  things  of  the  m}Tsterious  union  between 
Christ  and  the  Church.  It  is  one  of  our  greatest 
dangers  of  the  present  clay  to  think  light  1}*  of 
the  Church.  Now  that  the  world  is  overrun  with 
heresy,  and  that  in  social  life  almost  all  distinc- 
tions between  the  faithful  and  others  are  oblite- 
rated, it  is  convenient  to  men's  ease  and  accept- 
able to  their  cowardice  to  regard  the  faith  as 
one  of  many  saving  opinions,  and  the  Church  as 


THE    HISTORY   OF    THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.        229 

one  of  many  saving  institutions.  Men  will  make 
light  of  the  enormous  privileges  and  of  the  exclu- 
sive rights  of  the  Church,  either  out  of  human 
respect,  or  as  an  easy  way  of  diminishing  the  dif- 
ticulties  of  a  problem  which  they  are  unable  to 
solve  and  do  not  like  to  face.  A  disesteem  of  the 
Sacraments  follows  upon  this  with  a  very  speedy 
and  disastrous  logic.  The  practical  consequences 
soon  work  themselves  out.  Such  men  destroy  the 
souls  of  others  by  discouraging  the  frequentation 
of  the  Sacraments,  and  they  destroy  their  own 
by  that  laxity  of  worldly,  comfort-loving  lives, 
which  in  almost  all  cases  are  found  in  conjunc- 
tion with  very  rigorous  views.  Such  men  either 
rest  in  the  very  rigor  of  their  view,  as  if  its 
rigorousness  were  meritorious  enough  of  itself  to 
save  them,  or  they  put  feelings  and  sensible  de- 
votions in  the  place  of  mortifications,  and  so 
make  their  whole  spirituality  a  delusion.  They 
will  be  found  restive  and  uneasy  under  the  praise 
of  the  great  Sacraments;  and  this  shows  how  far 
they  have  drifted  from  the  instincts  of  the  Church. 
They  will  be  found  to  consider  the  chances  of  sal- 
vation for  the  poor  as  almost  less,  even  in  the 
point  of  unworldliness,  than  those  of  the  rich;  and 
this  shows  how  far  they  have  drifted  from  the 
mind  of  our  Lord,  who  blessed  the  poor  precisely 
as  entering  the  kingdom  of  heaven  more  easily 
than  the  rich.  A  man  who  thinks  lightly  of  the 
really  inestimable  privileges  of  the  Church  lets  go 
of  every  thing,  and  must  ultimately  either  end  in 
active  heresy  or  settle  down  into  a  wearied  irre- 
ligiousness.  The  Church  is  a  kingdom,  not  a  lite- 
rature,— a  life,  not  a  congeries  of  doctrines;  it  is 

20 


230        THE    HISTORY    OF   THE   PRECR  US    BLOOD. 

a  rule  and  a  sovereignty,  a  royalty  which  belongs 
to  the  royalty  of  the  Precious  Blood. 

Let  us  then  cultivate  with  the  most  jealous  care 
a  fervent  devotion  to  the  Church.  Love  of  the 
Church  was  part,  and  a  great  part,  of  the  Sacred 
Heart  of  Jesus.  The  Jansenists,  who  made  so 
light  of  the  maternal  authority  of  the  Church, 
turned  away  with  instinctive  displeasure  from  the 
devotion  to  the  Sacred  Heart.  We  must  look  at 
the  Church  habitually  as  the  sole  ark  in  the  deluge 
of  the  world,  the  sole  mistress  of  salvation.  We 
do  not  bind  God  further  than  he  has  been  pleased 
to  bind  himself.  We  do  not  limit  the  far-reaching 
excesses  of  his  mercy.  But  we  remember  that  his 
ordinary  law  is,  that  there  is  no  salvation  what- 
ever outside  the  Roman  Church.  It  is  his  ordi- 
nary institution  that  no  accurate  beliefs,  no  right 
sympathies,  no  generous  views,  no  near  approaches, 
no  scnsihle  devotions,  no  felt  actual  graces,  will 
make  a  man  a  living  member  of  Jesus  Christ, 
without  communion  with  the  Holy  See.  We  must 
be  jealous  of  the  uncomjoromising  simplicity  of  this 
old-fashioned  doctrine.  We  must  be  suspicious  of 
all  the  fine  words,  and  specious  theories,  and  inge- 
nious abatements,  which  the  spirit  of  the  day  would 
suggest.  We  must  be  misled  by  no  circumstances 
of  time  or  place,  by  no  prevalence  of  heresy,  by 
no  arguments  drawn  from  consequences,  which 
are  the  affair  of  God's  government  of  the  world, 
not  ours.  The  sins  of  men  cannot  change  the 
truth  of  God.  They  are  at  his  mercy,  not  he  at 
theirs.  In  the  days  of  Antichrist,  when  two-thirds 
even  of  the  faithful  shall  fall  away  from  the  Church, 


THE    HISTORY   OF   THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.         231 

their  apostasy  will  not  make  it  less  the  exclusive 
mistress  of  salvation. 

We  must  he  loyal  to  the  Church  in  our  least 
thoughts  of  it,  nor  even  talk  lightly  of  its  majesty. 
We  must  put  faith  in  it  in  all  its  contacts  and 
concussions  with  the  world,  and  in  all  its  contra- 
dictions of  the  assumed  grandeur  of  this  nine- 
teenth century,  which  is  more  than  half  spent, 
and  has  done  nothing  yet  to  justify  its  hoasting. 
We  must  not  measure  the  Church  by  unsuper- 
natural  standards,  which  it  is  the  world's  great 
object  to  persuade  us  to  do.  We  must  not  be 
ashamed  of  it  because  it  holds  back  when  it  seems 
grainier  to  go  forward.  We  must  not  be  discon- 
tented with  it  when  its  action  intersects  some 
little  favorite  anticipations  of  our  own.  We  must 
merge  our  own  selves  and  our  own  views  in  its 
consciously  or  unconsciously  Spirit-guided  policy. 
When  we  are  perplexed,  we  must  stand  still  and 
believe.  Silence  makes  us  great-hearted,  and 
judging  makes  us  little-minded.  We  must  do  all 
we  can  to  get  ourselves  infected  with  the  instincts 
of  the  Church.  We  must  like  its  ways,  as  well 
vts  obey  its  precepts  and  believe  its  doctrines. 
We  must  not  theorize ;  for,  if  we  once  begin  to 
theorize,  we  shall  soon  come  to  sneer.  A  mind 
not  under  authority  always  lies  under  a  necessity 
of  being  pert.  We  must  esteem  all  that  the 
Church  blesses,  all  that  the  Church  affects.  When 
the  Church  suffers,  or  souls  suffer,  we  must  not 
be  content  with  the  selfish  consolation  that,  after 
all,  the  Church  is  eternal,  and  must  conquer  in 
the  long  run  ;  but  we  must  have  an  active  sym- 
pathy with   all   its   present  vicissitudes,    and   an 


232       TIIE    HISTORY    OF   THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

untiring  zeal  and  an  unquenchable  thirst  foi 
souls;  and  tbo  salvation  of  souls  is  a  matter  of 
the  present ;  it  cannot  wait  for  a  future,  because 
men  are  dying  daily. 

We   must   even   fear  the   Church  with   a   filial 
reverence.     If  we  are  converts,  we   must   never 
cease  to  dread    the  underground   action  of  here- 
tical habits  of  mind  and  heretical  methods  of  con- 
troversy in  ourselves.      There  is  a  leaven  of  inhe- 
rent lawlessness  in  every  man  who  has  once  been 
a  heretic.     We  must  be  as  afraid  of  these  things 
as  Scripture  tells  us  to  be  afraid  of  forgiven  sin. 
In  some  cases  we  should  abstain    from  using  all 
the  liberty  of  speculation  which  the  Church  allows 
us,  because  we  humbly  distrust  the  strength  or 
the    genuineness  of    the    principle   of  obedience 
within  us,  to  stop  us  before  we  go  too  far.    Neither 
must  we  allow  ourselves  to  be  discontented  with  the 
state  of  things  anywhere  or  at  any  time.     Dis- 
content breeds  in  us  the  base  and  sour  spirit  of 
reformers.     The  chief  discontent  of  the  saints  was 
with  themselves.     So  should  ours  be.     AVe  read 
of  saints  being  downcast  and  discontented  about 
the  sin  that  is  in  the  world.     We  even   read  of 
their   being  discontented  with;   political   matters, 
when  they  concerned  the  free  action  and  unhin- 
dered sovereignty  of  the  Holy  See.     But  I  never 
read  of  any  saint   being   discontented   with   the 
intellectual,   or  philosophical,  or  literary  state  of 
things    in  the  Church.      I    doubt  if  such    a   dis- 
content  is   compatible  with    true  loyalty  to   the 
Church. 

Our  attitude  must  be  always  one  of  submission, 
not  of  criticism.     He,  who   is  disappointed  with 


THE    HISTORY   OF   THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD.        233 

the  Church,  must  be  losing  his  faith,  even  though 
he  ices  not  know  it.  I  hear  of  some  foreign 
countries  where  the  precepts  of  the  Church  are 
now  thought  lightly  of,  and  a  marked  distinction 
made  between  them  and  other  obligations;  and  I 
feel  sure  that  the  faith  of  those  countries  is  failing, 
although  there  may  be  a  show  to  the  contrary. 
When  I  meet  with  new  Catholics  careless  about 
these  same  precepts,  careless  of  the  Masses  and  ab- 
stinences of  obligation,  I  see  in  this,  not  so  much 
a  negligent  spirit,  as  a  downright  want  of  faith. 

A  man's  love  of  the  Church  is  the  surest  test  of 
his  love  of  God.  He  knows  that  the  whole  Church 
is  informed  with  the  Holy  Ghost.  The  divine 
life  of  the  Paraclete,  his  counsels,  his  inspirations, 
his  workings,  his  sympathies,  his  attraction,  are  in 
it  everywhere.  There  is  nothing  in  the  Church  or 
about  it,  however  seemingly  trivial,  transient, 
or  indirect,  which  is  not  more  likely  than  not  to 
contain  some  of  the  fire  of  the  Holv  Ghost:  and 
this  likelihood  is  the  cause  of  a  perpetual  and 
universal  reverence  for  the  Church  to  the  srood 
catholic.  The  gift  of  infallibility  is  but  a  concen- 
tration, the  culminating  point,  the  solemn  official 
out-speaking,  of  the  indwelling  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
in  the  Church.  While  it  calls,  like  revelation,  for 
absolute  submission  of  heart  and  soul,  all  the 
minor  arrangements  and  ways  and  dispositions  of 
the  Church  call  for  general  submission,  docilitj', 
and  reverence,  because  of  the  whole  Church  being 
a  shrine  fulfilled  with  the  life  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 
St.  Philip  Neri's  special  devotion  to  the  Third 
Person  of  the  Most  Holy  Trinity  was  part  of  that 
intense  lojalty  to  the  Church,  which  raised  him  to 

20* 


2ol        THE    BISTORT    OP   THE    THEClOUS    BLOOD. 

the  rank  and  title  of  an  apostle,  and  the  apostlo 
of  the  Holy  City.  In  a  word,  our  feeling  toward 
the  Church  should  be  a  devotion.  A  grandeur 
faded  from  the  page  of  history,  when  the  loyalty 
to  the  old  monarchies  went  out;  but  even  that 
loyalty  was  not  enough  for  our  feelings  toward 
the  Church.  The  Church  is  full  of  God,  haunted 
by  spiritual  presences,  informed  with  a  super- 
natural life,  instinct  with  Jesus.  Our  love  of  the 
Church  is  one  form  of  our  love  of  Jesus,  the  form 
on  which  the  saints  were  moulded.  It  is  our  love 
of  our  Lord's  love  of  us.  It  is  the  enthusiasm  of 
our  devotion  to  his  Precious  Blood.  Surely  it 
were  a  shame,  if  we  did  not  love  the  Church  more 
than  the  Jews  of  old  loved  their  dear  Jerusalem  ! 

From  this  cultivation  of  a  great  devotion  to  the 
Church  we  should  gain  many  of  those  graces  of  which 
we  stand  in  especial  need.  It  would  bring  with  it 
the  grace  of  simplicity,  because  it  would  be  founded 
on  the  virtue  of  obedience,  and  because  it  would 
foster  the  gift  of  faith.  In  these  days  it  is  a  huge 
evil  to  be  inconsistent;  and  we  are  inconsistent  as 
much  from  want  of  simplicity  as  want  of  courage. 
Simplicity  makes  a  quiet  spirit;  and  a  quiet  spirit 
is  the  true  home  of  heavenly  love.  But  times 
when  we  want  simplicity  are  also  times  when  we 
especially  require  prudence;  and  prudence  is  an- 
other grace  which  will  come  out  of  devotion  to  the 
Church.  They,  who  have  the  habit  of  leaning 
upon  authority,  distrust  themselves,  and  they  dis- 
trust themselves,  not  timidly,  but  bravely.  They 
are  not  precipitate.  There  is  a  maturity  about 
thtir  promptitude,  and  a  security  about  their  speed, 
and  a  vigorousness  even  in  their  delays,  which  aw 


THE    HISTORY    OF   THE    TRECIOUS    BLOOD.        235 

caught  from  the  spirit  and  conduct  of  the  Church 
itself.     Moreover,  devotion    to   the   Church   is  a 

loyalty,  and,  further,  it  is  a  supernatural  loyalty. 

But  loyalty  makes  a  man  generous.    It  causes  him 

to  dare  great  things,  to  be  forgetful  of  himself,  to 

be  disinterested,  to  love  hard  work,  to  delight  in 

sacrifices,  and  always  to  be  aspiring  to  something 

higher  and  more  arduous.     It  makes  a  man  genial; 

ami    it   is   only  a  genial   mind  which   is   creative, 

fertile,  or  successful.     How  man}-  hearts  are  daily 

telling  God  that  their  want  of  wants  is  generosity! 

They  will  find  it  through  devotion  to  the  Church. 

Stability  is  another  grace  which  the  men  of  our 

day  have  need  to  covet.     Multiplicity  makes  men 

vacillating.     Those,  who  are  always  catching  at 

tilings,  grasp  nothing.     To  be  really  earnest  wo 

must  he  constant.     But   the   earnest   man  is  the 

man  who  takes  every  thing  in  earnest.     He  is  not 

merely  the  persistent  man.     True  stability  must 

be  elastic  while  it  is  constant;  or  rather  it  will  bo 

constant  precisely  because  it  is  elastic.     This  is  an 

exact  description  of  that  changeful  uniformity  of 

which    the   whole   history   of  the    Church    is   an 

example.     Lastly,    a   certain   grace    comes    from 

secret   union    with   the    Church,  just   as   unction 

comes  from  union  with  God.     This  grace  of  union 

with   the    Church    gives  us  a  winningness  in   the 

eyes  of  others,  a  sort  of  inward  equable  sweetness, 

which  first  fills  our  own  souls  with  light  and  glad- 

ness,  and  then  draws  the  souls  of  others  into  the 

light  and  gladness  which  are  within  ourselves. 
jp . — — p — 

Each  man  knows  how  far  he  needs  these  things  as 
helps  to  him  in  his  spiritual  life.  To  many  of  us 
in  these  days  they  are  special  needs 


23G      THE  HISTORY  OF  the  precious  blood. 

There  are  still  three  lives  of  the  Precious  Blood 
remaining  to  be  treated  of;  but  we  may  in  reality 
consider  them  as  one.  There  is  the  actual  life  in 
heaven,  which  is  contemporaneous  with  that  life  in 
the  Church  from  the  Ascension  to  the  Doom,  which 
we  have  just  been  contemplating.  There  is  the 
life  of  the  Precious  Blood  in  the  Blessed  Sacra- 
ment, the  heavenly  life  miraculously  dowered  with 
an  earthly  locality  and  with  innumerous  localities 
at  once.  There  is,  lastly,  the  eternal  life  of  the 
Precious  Blood  in  heaven  after  the  Doom  for  all 
eternity,  when  Jesus  has  laid  down  his  kingdom 
and  changed  the  offices  of  his  priesthood.  These 
are  certainly  in  many  deep  senses,  and  with 
regard  to  many  curious  yet  edifying  questions, 
different  lives.  Yet,  for  our  present  practical  pur- 
pose, they  may  be  regarded  as  one.  The  life  of 
the  glorified  Blood  is  a  life  of  beatitude.  It  is 
•glad  in  itself,  and  ministers  gladness  to  others, 
even  to  the  boundless  uncreated  jubilee  of  God. 
The  Precious  Blood  is  the  Human  Life  of  tho 
Word.  Beatitude  is  the  natural  life  of  God;  and 
so  joy  is  the  natural  life  of  the  Precious  Blood. 
In  truth,  is  not  joy  the  nearest  definition  of  life 
that  we  can  have:  for  is  it  not  God's  first  intention 
in  the  gift  of  life? 

In  heaven  and  in  the  Blessed  Sacrament  tho 
Precious  Blood  dwells,  incomparably  glorified,  in 
the  veins  of  Jesus.  Its  beauty  there  is  wonderful 
to  see,  wonderful  to  think  of.  The  sight  of  it  in 
our  Lord's  translucent  Body  is  an  immense  gladness 
to  the  Blessed.  Earth  has  no  beauty  to  which  we 
can  compare  it;  yet  earth  is  not  therefore  poorer 
than   heaven;    for  it  has  this  very  beauty  in  the 


THE    HISTORY   OF   THE   TRECIOUS   BLOOD         237 

adorable  Sacrament.     But  it  is  not  only  a  joy  to 
Dthers.     Its  own  life  is  an  unbroken  jubilte.    As 

it  goes  and  returns  to  and  from  the  Sacred  Heart 
it  is  tilled  with  pulses  of  the  most  abounding  glad- 
ness.     It   tbrills   with    the    exquisite    delight    of 
created  life  carried  to  its  utmost  ecstatic,  possibility. 
But,  over  and  above  this,  there  is  the  indefinable, 
unimaginable   ecstasy  of  the  Hypostatic  Union, 
which  is  felt  in  every  particle  of  that   Precious 
Blood.      It   throbs   with    such    pacific   tumult   of 
immortal  love,  as  no  created  life  could  bear  with- 
out some  miraculous  union  with  the  Godhead.     It 
thrills  with  sacred  fear,  with  transports  of  intensest 
adoration,  before  the  uncreated  majesty  of  God. 
It  is  penetrated   through    and    through  with   the 
excesses  of  this  holy  fear.     That,  which   itself  is 
worshipped  by  the  hierarchies  of  heaven,  trembles 
with  a  very  jubilee  of  worship  before  the  Throne 
of  the  Eternal.     Possessed  with  such  extremity  of 
rapturous  fear,  how  could   the  Precious  Blood  so 
tremble,  and  so  exult,  and  yet  live  on,  if  it  were 
not  that  it  rested  for  its  dear  support  upon  the 
uncreated  Person  of  the  Word?     It  seems  to  stop 
the  beating  of  one's  heart  to  think  of  this  unutter- 
able repose  of  that  created  nature,  that   Sacred 
Humanity,  that  personless  life,  on  the  Person  of 
the  Eternal  Word  !     The  strange  beauty  of  such  a 
God-invented  union,  the  delight  of  the  Divine  Per- 
son in  the  touch  of  a  created  nature  which  yet  is 
no  touch  at  all,  for  the  Divine  Person  can  suffer 
none,  the  ecstasies  of  the  Sacred  Humanity  as  tho 
unction  of  the  Word  with   soft  sweet  fire  pene- 
trates its  secret  sanctuaries  of  life,  the  compre- 
hension   of  .that    humble,   affectionate,   pathetic, 


238        THE    HISTORY    OF   THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

material  nature  within  the  enfoldings  of  the  In 
comprehensible,  which  embrace  it  with  such  for- 
bearing gentleness  of  omnipotence,  and  yet  with 
such  a  riveted  closeness  of  invincible  union, — to 
what  heart,  sweetly  smitten  with  love  of  Jesus, 
are  not  these  things  the  unfading  joys  of  prayer, 
the  unfailing  wells  of  tears  ?  "What  a  life  is  the 
life  of  that  Precious  Blood  !  Yet  amid  the  untold 
magnificence  of  the'  Divine  Union  it  fee-Is  its 
kindred  to  Mary,  as  a  special  joy  of  its  abounding 
life.  Its  original  fountains  are  still  flowing  in 
their  sinless  purity,  beautified  now  with  the  gifts 
of  glory,  in  the  Mother's  Immaculate  Heart;  and 
the  fountain  in  the  Sacred  Heart  beats  in  myste 
rious  sympathy  with  the  source  from  which  it 
came  itself.  Singular  in  all  its  wonderful  preroga- 
tives, it  yet  intertwines  the  life  of  Mary  with  its, 
own. 

Look  at  the  Precious  Blood  for  a  moment  as  it 
lies  within  the  Sacred  Heart  with  a  living  peace, 
like  the  restless  tranquillity  of  ocean.  It  is  itself 
the  ocean  of  joy  from  which  all  other  joys  in  crea- 
tion come.  It  is  through  it  that  the  immensity 
of  God's  gladness  pours  itself  into  all  the  universe, 
and  at  the  same  time  lets  itself  also  be  mysteriously 
gladdened  by  the  Precious  Blood.  All  the  joys, 
and  they  are  numberless,  which  are  still  left  in  the 
fallen  world,  whether  they  be  natural  or  super- 
natural, are  in  substance  Indulgences,  Indulgences 
which  are  granted  because  of  the  Precious  Blood. 
Sinners  upon  earth  still  have  joys :  they  corao 
from  the  Precious  Blood.  Saints  on  earth  are  tlio 
gladdest  of  God's  ci-eatures.  Their  lives  are  all 
flight  and   song,  like  the  hot-blooded   lives  of  th« 


TI1K    IIIST0LV    OF    THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.       239 

birds  of  the  air.  All  this  gladness  is  from  the 
Precious  Blood.  The  saints  in  heaven  are  spirits 
overflowed  with  joy,  spirits  whoso  quietness  is 
transport  and  whose  soberness  is  ecstasy.  It  is 
the  Precious  Blood  which  flows  over  them  forever. 
The  wide,  outspread  vastness  of  angelic  jubilee, 
the  thing  likest  to  immensity  of  all  created  things, 
created  to  mirror  the  immensity  of  God,  is  all  an 
emanation  from  the  Precious  Blood.  Nay,  it  is  a 
changeful,  changeless  sea,  with  tides;  for  there  are 
daily,  hourly  increases  of  new  joys  in  the  angels 
from  the  conversions  of  sinners;  and  these  con- 
versions are  precisely  the  operations  of  the  Pre- 
cious Blood.  Yet  that  ocean  of  angelic  jubilee 
washes  but  the  base  of  Mary's  throne.  Her  joy 
is  like  the  fringe  of  the  blessedness  of  God.  It  is 
all  the  multitudinous  joys  of  creatures  made  one 
joy  by  her  Divine  Maternity,  and  multiplied,  as 
well  as  intensified,  by  being  one.  Yet  the  bliss  of 
Mary  is  all  from  the  Precious  Blood,  the  nearest 
gladness  to  the  gladness  of  the  Sacred  Humanity, 
the  first  heart  filled  from  the  Sacred  Heart.  But 
who  shall  tell  the  nameless,  immeasurable  joys 
with  which  the  Precious  Blood  fills  the  Sacred 
Heart  itself?  It  cannot  contain  its  own  jubilee. 
It  multiplies  itself  in  order  to  relieve  its  exulta- 
tion. It  has  inundated  heaven;  but  the  vast  shores 
of  the  empyrean  c  mfine  it  and  restrain  its  floods. 
By  the  help  of  its  omnipotence,  behold!  it  escapes 
as  if  by  miracle,  sparkles  in  countless  daily  chalices 
upon  earth,  and  within  the  cup  of  each  chalice  it 
peacefully  outstretches  itself,  unhindered  in  its 
infinity,  with  its  grandeur  enfranchised,  and  its 
lave   set   free  from   all   material    laws.      But   the 


240        THE    HISTORY    OF   THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

jubilee  of  the  Precious  Blood  lies  onward  still  and 
onward,  whither  we  cannot  explore  it.  We  listen 
to  hear  its  breakers  sounding  on  the  misty  shore. 
But  there  comes  no  sound.  The  shores  are  too 
fur  off;  or  are  there  shores  at  all?  The  "Word 
delights  eternally  in  his  Human  Blood.  Its  golden 
glow  beautilies  the  fires  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Its 
ministries  beget  inexplicable  joys  in  the  Unbe- 
gotten  Father. 

I  was  upon  the  seashore;  and  my  heart  filled 
with  love  it  knew  not  why.  Its  happiness  went 
out  over  the  wide  waters  and  upon  the  unfettered 
wind,  and  swelled  up  into  the  free  dome  of  blue 
sky  until  it  filled  it.  The  dawn  lighted  up  the 
faces  of  the  ivory  cliffs,  which  the  sun  and  sea  had 
been  blanching  for  centuries  of  God's  unchanging 
love.  The  miles  of  noiseless  sands  seemed  vast  as 
if  they  were  the  floor  of  eternity.  Somehow  the 
daybreak  was  like  eternity.  The  idea  came  over 
me  of  that  feeling  of  acceptance,  which  so  en- 
trances the  soul  just  judged  and  just  admitted  into 
heaven.  To  be  saved!  I  said  to  myself,  To  be 
saved!  Then  the  thoughts  of  all  the  things  im- 
plied in  salvation  came  in  one  thought  upon  me; 
and  I  said,  This  is  the  one  grand  joy  of  life;  and  I 
clapped  my  hands  like  a  child,  and  spoke  to  God 
aloud.  But  then  there  came  man}'  thoughts  all  in 
one  thought,  about  the  nature  and  manner  of  our 
salvation.  To  be  saved  with  such  a  salvation!  This 
was  a  grander  joy,  the  second  grand  joy  of  life  : 
and  I  tried  to  say  some  lines  of  a  hymn;  but  the 
words  were  choked  in  my  throat.  The  ebb  was 
sucking  the  sea  down  over  the  sand  quite  silently; 
and  the  cliffs  were  whiter,  and  more  daylike.  Then 


TIIE    niSTORY   OF   THE    TRECIOUS   BLOOD.       211 

there  came  man}'  more  thoughts  all  in  one  thought; 
and  I  stood  still  -without  intending  it.  To  be  saved 
by  such  a  Savior!  This  was  the  grandest  joy  of 
all,  the  third  grand  joy  of  life;  and  it  swallowed 
up  the  other  joys;  and  after  it  there  could  be  on 
earth  no  higher  joy.  I  said  nothing;  hut  I  looked 
a(  the  sinking  sea  as  it  reddened  in  the  morning. 
Its  great  heart  was  throbbing  in  the  calm;  and 
methought  I  saw  the  Precious  Blood  of  Jcsrs  in 
heaven,  throbbing  that  houi*  with  real  huma*-  lovo 
of  mo 


t» 


212  the  prodigality  of  tiie  precious  blood. 


CHAPTEE  V. 

THE   PRODIGALITY   OF   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

Let  us  kneel  down  before  the  magnificence  of 
God.  It  is  outstretched  as  an  ocean  of  manifold 
Being  and  yet  of  indivisible,  uncreated  Lifo,  in- 
tolerable in  its  splendor,  uncircumscribed  in  its 
simplicity.  His  magnificence  is  the  vastness  of 
his  beauty,  the  multitude  of  his  perfections,  the 
coruscations  of  his  sanctity,  the  impetuosity  of  his 
communicativeness,  the  *:  muteness  of  his  govern- 
ment, the  strange  celestial  sweetness  of  his  gifts, 
the  prodigality  of  his  tenderness,  the  abysses  of 
his  ineredible  condescensions,  and  the  exuberance 
of  his  simplicity.  Tnese  are  many  words;  but  the 
idea  is  one.  Our  thought  of  God's  magnificence  is 
as  a  sea.  It  changes  not;  but  it  changes  us  while 
we  look  upon  it.  We  see  the  calm  of  eternity  upon 
its  waters,  peaceful  as  an  endless  evening.  Airs 
from  a  far  country  come  quivering  over  its  shining 
tracts,  freighted  with  aromatic  odors,  which  are 
diffused  around  and  sensibly  deepen  the  tranquil- 
lity. Then  again  the  freshness  of  morning  is  upon 
its  swaying  fields;  and  a  thousand  waves  crest 
themselves  with  foam,  and  fling  up  star-showers 
into  the  sunlight;  and  it  booms  upon  the  shore; 
and  it  makes  us  feel  the  gentleness  of  power  which 
knows  how  to  become  terrible;  and  the  visible 
unexerted  omnipotence  is  an  admonition  to  prayer 


TIIK    PRODIGALITY   OF   THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.  2\?> 

Then  it  clothes  itself  with  the  plumage  of  dark- 
ness, and  murmurs  in  the  midnight  as  it*  it  were 
gone  down  to  a  great  distance;  in  order  that  we 
may  know  how  different  it  is  when  it  is  felt  from 
what  it  is  when  it  is  seen.  Another  while  it  lies 
gray-green  beneath  a  sunless  sky,  with  snow- 
capped cliffs  around,  sovereign  when  all  else  is 
subject,  free  when  all  else  has  lost  its  liberty,  im- 
mutable when  all  else  has  suffered  winter's  change. 
It  has  also  its  tempests,  more  beautiful  and  more 
terrible  than  the  glorious  storms  of  earth.  Its 
lightnings  make  the  darkness  round  it  palpable 
and  solid.  Its  thunders  command  a  universal 
silence.  Its  decrees  rush  after  each  other  in 
mighty  waves  of  orderly  confusion,  menacing  the 
land  like  falling  towers,  and  breaking  in  dull  inar- 
ticulate shocks  against  the  precipices  of  the  divine 
justice.  Yet  evermore,  in  storm  or  calm,  there 
lies  upon  the  ocean  the  light  of  the  Precious  Blood 
of  Jesus,  restful  as  the  golden  red  of  evening,  hope- 
ful as  the  rosy  flush  of  dawn.  This  is  the  figure 
of  the  magnificence  of  God. 

There  is  nothing  more  glorious  upon  ourth  than 
magnificence,  nothing  which  more  delights  the 
mind  or  expands  the  soul,  while  it  gratifies  the 
senses  at  the  same  time  that  it  ennobles  their 
pleasure.  But,  among  creatures,  magnificence  is 
always  a  revelation  of  defects.  Indeed,  it  not  only 
discloses  imperfections,  but  causes  them.  It  is  too 
great  an  effort.  It  calls  for  sacrifices  which  had 
better  not  be  made.  It  is  often  obliged  to  bo  re- 
gardless of  justice.  It  is  made  up  of  imprudences. 
There  is  for  the  most  part  a  tyranny  about  it. 
Much  suffering  has  generally  to  be  contributed  tc 


244  THE   PRODIGALITY   OF   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

it;  and  the  suffering  falls  mostly  on  those  wuc 
have  not  the  glory  of  the  magnificence.  Moreover, 
it  is  debased  by  ostentation,  and  disfigured  by 
pretence.  Nevertheless  it  wins  the  applause  of 
men,  and  even  lives  in  history.  The  nations  will 
pardon  almost  any  thing  to  magnificence.  It 
seems  to  satisiy  a  want  of  the  soul  which  is  rarely 
satisfied.  It  refreshes  the  littleness  of  the  creature; 
and,  even  when  it  is  the  glory  of  one  man,  it  is  felt 
as  if  it  were  that  one  man's  gift  to  all  mankind. 
What  then  must  be  the  beauty  and  the  delight  of 
magnificence  when  it  is  supremely  holy?  What 
must  be  its  grandeur  where  it  is  natural?  How 
great  must  be  its  splendor  when  it  is  the  normal 
expression  and  the  simple  exercise  of  innumerable 
perfections !  There  is  no  effort  in  the  magnificence 
of  God,  and  no  display.  It  is  not  a  higher  height 
rising  above  the  lowlands.  It  is  not  a  transient 
demonstration.  It  is  the  refulgence  of  his  eternal 
quietude.  It  is  the  brightness  of  his  infinite  jus- 
tice. It  is  the  unchanging  aspect  of  his  glorious 
sanctity.  It  is  the  inevitable  light  of  the  riches 
of  the  Godhead.  It  is  the  self-possessed  enjoyment 
of  his  beatitude.  To  us  all  holiness  is  a  form  of 
restraint.  "We  can  hardly  form  to  ourselves  any 
other  conception  of  it.  If  we  try  to  do  so,  we 
shall  be  surprised  to  find  how  difficult  it  is.  Think 
then  what  holiness  must  be,  where  it  is  a  form  of 
largeness,  of  prodigality,  of  boundless  freedom  ! 
Yet  this  is  the  magnificence  of  God. 

Hoses  grow  on  briers,  say  the  wise  men  of  the 
world,  with  that  sententious  morality  which  thinks 
to  make  virtue  truthful  by  making  it  dismal.  Yes! 
but,  as  the  very  different  spirit,  of  piety  would  say, 


THE   PRODIGALITY   OF   HIE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD.  245 

it  is  a  truer  truth  that  briers  bloom  with  roses.  If 
roses  have  thorns,  thorns  also  have  roses.  This  Is 
the  rule  of  life.  Yet  everybody  tells  us  one  side 
of  this  truth,  and  nobody  tells  us  the  other.  A 
kind-hearted  man  finds  life  full  of  joys,  for  ho 
makes  joys  of  things  which  else  were  not  joy3j 
and  a  simple-hearted  man  can  be  very  joyous  on  a 
little  joy;  and  to  the  pure-hearted  man  all  things 
are  joys.  How  can  the  world  be  an  unhappy 
world,  which  has  so  magnificent  a  God?  His  mag- 
nificence is  the  fountain  of  all  our  joys;  for  it  is 
the  fountain  of  salvation.  Here  lies  the  secret  of 
the  inveterate  happiness  of  the  world.  Even  in  its 
fall,  it  is  so  implicated  in  the  blessedness  of  God 
that  it  has  not  a  darkness  anywhere  without  its 
light,  nor  a  bitter  without  its  sweet.  God's  simple 
presence  is  an  overflowing  of  delight.  His  inani- 
mate creatures  have  a  changeless  joy  stamped 
upon  their  mute  features.  The  multitudinous 
species  of  unreasoning  creatures,  whether  they 
belong  to  the  earth,  to  the  air,  or  to  the  waters, 
plainly  revel  in  life  as  a  joy  which  fills  their  natures 
to  the  brim.  We  ourselves  have  a  hundred  hap- 
pinesses, even  when  we  fancy  ourselves  quite  deso- 
late. There  is  no  real  desolation  except  mortal 
sin.  There  is  too  much  of  God  every  where  to 
allow"  either  of  permanent  or  general  unhappiness. 
He,  who  can  find  his  joy  in  God,  is  in  heaven 
already;  only  it  is  a  heaven  which  is  not  secured 
to  him,  unless  lie  perseveres  to  the  end.  Yet  is  it 
hard  to  find  our  joy  in  God?  Rather,  is  it  not 
hard  to  find  our  joy  in  any  thing  else?  The  mag- 
nificence of  God  is  the  abounding  joy  of  life.  It 
is  an  immense  joy  to  belong  to  God.  It  is  an  in* 
■  21* 


24G   THE    r-RODIUALITY    OF    THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

mensc  J037"  to  have  such  a  God  belonging  to  us 
Like  the  joys  of  heaven,  it  is  a  joy  new  every 
morning  when  we  wake,  as  new  as  if  we  had  never 
tasted  it  before.  Like  the  joys  of  earth,  it  is  a 
joy  every  evening  resting  and  pacifying  the  soul. 
But  it  has  a  gift  of    its  own    besides.     For    its 

O  — 

novelty  grows  fresher  and  more  striking  daily, 
and  its  repose  more  satisfying  and  more  com- 
plete. The  joy  of  God's  magnificence  more 
than  counterbalances  all  mortal  griefs.  When 
I  think  of  his  magnificence,  of  all  that  his  mag- 
nificence implies,  of  its  intimate  concernment 
with  myself,  and  of  the  way  in  which  I  am 
always  sinking  more  and  more  irretrievably  into 
the  abysses  of  his  sovereigntjr,  I  often  wonder 
how  we  can  contain  ourselves  with  joy  at  having 
such  a  God. 

In  treating  of  the  prodigality  of  the  Precious 
Blood,  it  is  necessary  that  we  should  have  clear 
ideas  of  the  magnificence  of  God  :  for  the  one  is 
a  part  of  the  other.  No  one,  of  course,  doubts 
the  magnificence  of  God.  Our  loftiest  conceptions 
must  fall  infinitely  below  the  gorgeousness  of  the 
reality.  No  accumulation  of  beautiful  ideals  can 
reach  the  incredible  glory  of  the  truth.  An  im- 
mensity of  omnipotent  beauty  is  a  thing  which  it 
bewilders  us  to  think  of.  We  should  suppose  that 
a  flingle  glimpse  of  the  magnificence  of  God  would 
annihilate  us  by  its  excess  of  impetuous  light.  Yet, 
notwithstanding  all  this,  the  character  of  God  is 
never  revealed  to  us  more  intimately  or  more 
clearly  than  when  he  is  disclosed  to  us  as  the  God 
who  -'orders  all  things  in  measure, in  number,  and 


THE    PRODIGALITY   OF   THE   TRECIOUS    BLOOD.    247 

weight."*  lie  docs  every  thing  by  measure.  The 
Immeasurable  decrees  by  measure,  works  by  mea- 
sure, rewards  by  measure,  punishes  by  measure, 
delights  in  measure.  The  Eternal,  of  uncounted 
ages,  of  uncounted  spaces,  loves  to  count  by  num- 
bers. He  counts  all  things,  and  calls  them  by 
their  names.  lie  surrounds  each  unity  with  his 
whole  Self,  with  his  entire  justice,  with  his  com- 
plete love.  He  leaves  out  nothing.  He  overlooks 
nobody.  It  belongs  to  him  as  Creator  to  be  accu- 
rate, to  be  methodical,  to  be  infallible  in  his  mi- 
nuteness. The  Illimitable  weighs  all  things,  as  if 
their  weight  were  an  object  even  to  his  unsearch- 
able riches.  His  magnificence  delights  in  nothing 
more  than  in  the  strictness  of  proportions.  His 
justice  weighs  out  glory  with  the  most  un- 
blemished accuracy.  Even  his  measure  that  is 
pressed  down,  and  shaken  together,  and  running 
over,  has  all  its  merciful  superfluity  weighed  out 
with  minutest  carefulness.  The  very  orbs  that 
roll  in  heaven  keep  up  the  universal  harmony  by 
the  exceeding  nicety  and  adjustment  of  their 
weights.  So  is  it  in  the  world  of  grace.  So  is  it 
in  the  world  of  glory.  Our  God  is  an  accurate 
God ;  and  in  nothing  is  he  more  adorable  than  in 
his  accuracy. 

Magnificence,  in  our  idea  of  it,  is  above  law. 
Xow,  to  our  eyes,  the  divinest  of  all  God's  pro- 
pensities is  his  love  of  law.  The  grandeur  of  his 
liberty  is,  that  it  is  an  uncircumscribed  law. 
"Within  his  own  infinite  life  all  things  are  abso- 
lately  necessary,  all  things  are,  in  the  most  tran- 


*  Wisdom  xi.  21. 


248    THE   PRODIGALITY   OF   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

sccndental  sense  of  the  word,  laws.  His  knowledge 
of  himself  is  not  the  Holy  Ghost;  hut  it  is  the 
~\\  ord.  His  love  of  himself  is  not  the  Word;  hut 
it  is  the  Holy  Ghost.  Much  more  is  this  magni- 
ficent attribute  of  law-lovingness  shown  forth  iu 
his  external  works,  wherein  there  is  no  necessity. 
He  is  himself  a  sufficient  living  law  to  his  crea- 
tion. Yet  everywhere  in  the  universe  he  is  at 
once  multiplying  and  simplifying  laws.  Every 
thing  is  done  by  law,  the  least  no  less  than  the 
greatest  of  things.  He  almost  hides  himself  be- 
hind an  impenetrable  screen  of  laws.  It  is  as  if 
he  wished  to  fetter  his  infinite  freedom  with  an 
infinity  of  finite  laws.  He  seems  to  make  himself 
the  captive  of  his  own  punctuality.  Every  time 
and  place  have  their  laws.  There  is  not  a  corner 
of  creation  where  there  is  not  a  whole  code  of 
laws.  His  omnipresence  is  an  omnipresence  of 
law.  Every  thing  wears  the  chains  of  order,  of 
sequence,  of  repetition.  From  this  adorable  love 
of  law  comes  the  unutterable  tranquillity  of  all 
the  divine  operations  in  the  world.  It  is  this  tran- 
quillity which  makes  the  earth  so  like  a  sanctuary, 
it  is  so  manifestly  the  covering  under  which  God 
hides  himself.  The  silent  calm  of  so  much  onward 
overwhelming  power,  the  gentleness  of  such  a  gi- 
gantic pressure,  the  graceful,  unsuspecting  liberly 
amidst  such  a  complication  of  restraints,  the  un- 
hindered exuberance  of  such  multitudinous  and 
seemingly  eccentric  life,  the  unending  soundless 
conflict  of  opposing  forces  which  ends  in  such  un- 
hindered amplitude  of  r"pose  and  harmony, — all 
theee  things  are  from  that  gracious  propensity  to 
law  which  belongs  to  the  sweet   majesty  of  God 


THE    I'RC  1HGALITY    OF   THE    TRECIOUS   BLOOD.    249 

It  is  his  way  to  love  uniformity;  and  the  Creator's 
uniformity  is  the  creature's  liberty.  It  is  his 
uniformity  and  his  slowness  which  at  once  repre- 
scn.t_his. eternity  and  yet  hinder  it  from  oppressing 
time. 

The  magnificence  of  God,  then,  is  no  waste  of 
splendor.     It  is  no  lavish  prodigality  of  glory.     It 
is  not  a  mere  pageant  of  his  royal  state.     It  is 
if  we  may  use  the  word,  a  necessity  to  God.     He 
cannot   be   otherwise.     He   is  magnificent,  simply 
because  he  is  God.     He  cannot  lay  down  his  gran- 
deur, or  be  less  grand,  or  be  grander  at  one  time 
than  at  another.     Magnificence  is  his  divine  life. 
It  does  not  cling  to  his  perfections  like  a  robe.     It 
is  inseparable  from  him.     It  is  the  outward  opera- 
tion of  his  wonderful  attributes.     It  is  the  inward 
tranquillity    of    his    incomprehensible    life.     His 
accuracy,    his    punctuality,    his   love   of   law,    his 
propensity  to  number,  measure,  and  weight,  his 
fashion  of  uniformity,  his  Avaj  s  of  order  and  se- 
quence, — all   these   things  are   part  of  the   magni- 
ficence of  God  ;  and  they  are  the  ways   l>\   which 
h|s_m_agniticence    is    imparted    to~his    creatures. 
This  is  very  different  from  oar  human  ideas  of 
magnificence,  and   must  be  borne  in  mind.     The 
truth  is,  that  God  is  so  high  that  we  can  only 
approach  to  truth  in  speaking  of  him  by  speaking 
in  superlatives.     Thus  we  often  speak  of  his  love 
and  his  compassion  as  if  he  did  more  for  us  than 
be  need  do,  as  if  less  would  be  sufficient,  as  if  he 
wasted  grace  with   a  kind  of  spendthrift  genero- 
sity, as  if  his  magnificence  were  always  in  excess. 
All  this  expresses  a  most  holy  truth,  so  far  as  the 
inconceivable  magnificence  of  his  goodness  toward 


250    THE    IRODIGALITY   OF   THE   TRECTOUS   BLOOD. 

us  is  concerned.  Yet  it  is  not  true,  so  far  as  re- 
gards the  awful  magnificence  of  God  himself.     Ir 

like  manner  we  sometimes  speak  of  the  Incarna- 
tion and  of  the  Atonement,  as  if  they  had  per- 
suaded God  to  be  less  God  than  ho  really  is,  as 
if  they  had  given  mercy  some  sort  of  advantage 
against  justice,  as  if  God  would  overlook  now 
what  he  would  not  overlook  before,  as  if  the  terms 
of  forgiveness  of  sin  had  become  easier  because 
God's  sanctity  was  content  with  less.  This  also 
expresses  a  kind  of  truth.  I  am  not  quarrelling 
with  the  language.  Holy  Scripture  sometimes 
uses  it,  in  order  to  make  things  plain  to  us.  All 
language  about  God  labors  under  the  necessity 
of  being  inaccurate.  It  cannot  even  escape  by 
being  merely  short  of  truth.  But,  when  it  be- 
comes of  importance  to  us  to  obtain  a  somewhat 
clearer  view  of  any  particular  attribute  of  God, 
then  we  must  do  our  best  to  correct  this  otherwise 
harmless  error  in  our  minds.  It  is  necessary  now, 
in  order  to  understand  what  we  popularly  term 
the  prodigality  of  the  Precious  Blood,  to  under- 
stand also  that  God's  magnificence  does  not  over- 
whelm,  as  with  an  inundation  of  glorious  light, 
his  love  of  law,  repetition,  order,  and  accuracy,  or 
his  methodical  uniformity,  or  his  punctual  strict- 
ness, or  his  undistracted  attention  to  details;  but 
rather  it  brings  out  all  these  characteristics  still 
more  strongly,  because  it  shows  him  to  be  mag- 
nificent precisely  in  these  things,  and  because 
of  them. 

Thus  the  divine  magnificence  is  a  divine  method 
of  order  and  measure.  So  far  from  being  above 
the  restraints  of  law,  its  grandest  developments 


THE    PRODIGALITY    OF   THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.    251 

of  itself  arc  by  means  of  laws.  So  far  from  being 
oblivious  of  petty  details,  its  infinity  confounds 
the  distinction  between  great  and  small,  and 
makes  all  things  equal  in  its  sight.  .May  I  not 
even  say  that  in  some  mysteries,  and  from  some 
human  points  of  view,  there  is  even  an  appearance 
of  parsimony  in  the  magnificence  of  God?  Is 
there  not,  to  our  ignorance,  this  semblance  about 
the  fall  of  the  angels,  and  about  the  long  delay 
of  the  Incarnation,  and  about  the  low  tides  of 
grace  which  are  known  to  the  experience  of  most 
men  in  their  own  lives?  It  is  not  so,  but  it  seems 
so.  God  is  never  parsimonious;  but  he  is  some- 
times sparing.  He  proportions  graces  to  tempta- 
tions in  a  way  which  disquiets  us  because  it 
makes  our  risks  plainer.  His  very  liberality  is 
adorably  just.  His  gifts  are  given  under  laws. 
They  are  the  administration  of  his  laws.  Thus 
it  comes  to  pass  that  his  magnificence  partakes 
of  the  severity  of  his  holiness.  What  looks  to  us 
like  economy  is  in  fact  the  operation  of  his  ex- 
ceeding sanctity. 

Nevertheless,  when  all  this  order,  and  sequence, 
and  law,  and  proportion,  and  number,  and  weight, 
and  measure,  and  accuracy,  are  upon  a  scale  which 
is  infinite,  when  the}'  are  all  clothed  in  immensity, 
when  they  are  the  vast  sweeping  circuits  of  ever- 
lasting decrees,  when  they  hold  a  love  which  is 
inexhaustible  and  a  compassion  which  is  un- 
wearied and  a  tenderness  which  has  no  likeness 
to  itself  outside  of  God,  they  have  all  that  exu- 
berance, lavishness,  and  prodigality,  which  ai'0 
the  characteristics  of  magnificence.  Only  they 
have  these  things  without  the  corresponding  im* 


252    Till    PRODIGALITY   OF   THE    TRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

perfections  which  are  inseparable  from  them  in 
the  case  of  creatures.  Prodigality  in  this  higher 
sense  is  a  characteristic  of  all  the  divine  works. 
Finite  and  limited  as  they  are,  nothingness  and 
the  children  of  nothingness,  yet  in  that  they  are 
also  the  creations  of  God  they  wonderfully  shadow 
forth  the  munificence  of  his  immensity.  We  have 
already  seen  this  in  the  number  of  the  angels. 
We  cannot  meditate  upon  their  countless  multi- 
tudes without  astonishment.  So  vast  a  populace, 
of  such  surpassing  beauty,  of  such  gigantic  intel- 
ligence, of  such  diversified  nature,  is  simply  over- 
whelming to  our  most  ambitious  thoughts.  A 
locust-swarm,  and  each  locust  an  archangel,  the 
myriads  of  points  of  life  disclosed  to  us  by  the 
microscope,  and  each  point  a  grand  spirit,  the 
sands  of  the  seas  and  the  waters  of  the  ocean,  and 
each  grain  and  each  drop  a  beautiful  being  the 
brightness  of  whose  substance  we  could  not  see 
and  live, — this  is  but  an  approximation  to  the 
reality.  So  theologians  teach  us.  Or,  again,  let 
us  think  of  the  multitudinousness  of  the  starry 
skies.  Astronomers  tell  us  that  our  Milky  Way 
is  but  one  of  hundreds,  perhaps  of  thousands,  of 
nebulffi,  to  which  our  instruments  may  hope  to 
reach.  Yet  our  one  Milky  Way,  in  which  we  our- 
selves are  dwellers,  is  reported  to  contain  thirty 
millions  of  suns  ;  and  we  are  but  a  little  planet, 
of  one  of  the  lesser  suns.  Moreover,  it  is  probable 
that  the  depth  in  space  in  which  our  instruments 
can  reach  is  but  as  the  ankle  dee])  water  on  the 
shore,  through  which  the  fearless  child  can  wade 
in  sport,  compared  with  the  yet  unfathomed 
depths  of  the  mid-ocean.      Figures  are    hardly  a 


THE    PRODIGALITY  OF   THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.    253 

help  to  us  in  estimating  the  probable  number  of 
Cod's  worlds.  St.  John  speaks  with  rapture  of 
t he  multitude  of  the  saved,  as  of  a  number  that 
no  man  can  count.  The  same  magnificence  of 
numbers  reigns  in  the  laws  and  (he  lives  of  tlm 
material  world  ;  and  who  can  doubt  but  that  the 
sphitual  far  outstrips  the  material  world  in  its 
prolific  exubcranco  of  graces  and  inspirations? 
We  are  speaking  only  of  numbers;  and  yet  see  the 
magnificence  of  God!  For  the  vastness  of  the 
numbers  is  but  a  lesser  development  of  the  bound- 
less love  from  which  creation  springs.  It  is  the 
royalty  of  his  love  which  the  blameless  custom 
of  the  faithful  has  named  his  prodigality. 

Now  let  us  apply  all  this  to  the  prodigality  of 
the  Precious  Blood.  In  nothing  was  he  more 
likely  to  be  prodigal  than  in  this  work,  which 
was  especially  to  minister  to  his  Dominion  and  his 
Magnificence.  In  nothing  was  he  more  likely  to 
be  prodigal  than  in  that  which  represented  in 
itself  the  whole  series  of  his  divine  decrees.  In 
nothing  is  it  of  so  much  importance  to  us  that 
be  should  be  magnificent  as  in  the  shedding  of 
his  Blood.  It  would  be  part  of  his  Dominion 
part  of  his  Magnificence,  to  be  accurately  prodi- 
gal of  that  which  made  his  Dominion  more  dear 
to  him,  and  his  Magnificence  more  magnificent. 
Yet  I  would  fain  keep  before  you  what  I  hinted 
at  in  the  Second  Chapter, — that  the  prodigality 
of  the  Precious  Blood  is  simply  necessary  for  our 
wretchedness,  that  we  could  not  do  with  less  of  it, 
that,  if  so  infinite  a  price  were  to  be  paid  for  our 
redemption,  it  must  be  infinitely  paid.  I  said  a 
while  ago  that  magnificence  was  a  kind  of  neces- 

22 


2f)4    TOE   TRODIGALITY  OF    TnE    l'RECIOUS    BLOOD. 

sity  to  God.  He  could  not  help  being  magni- 
ficent, precisely  because  he  is  God.  Now,  I  want 
to  say  that,  in  a  sense  which  is  full  of  devotional 
reality,  the  magnificence  of  the  Creator  is  the 
Creature's  necessity.  We  could  not  do  without  it. 
We  could  not  live,  still  less  rejoice,  if  God  were 
Jess  magnificent.  It  is  true  we  cannot  compre- 
hend God.  But  we  can  possess  him,  we  can  enjoy 
him;  nay,  we  must  possess  him,  we  must  enjoy 
him,  in  his  whole  Self.  We  must  do  so,  or  tall 
into  the  abyss  of  eternal  death.  Unless  his  in- 
finity thus  supports,  sustains,  fulfils,  our  finiteness, 
we  are  but  ruin  and  desolation.  It  is  his  infinity 
thus  compassionately  and  delightedly  acting  upon 
our  finiteness,  which  we  call  his  magnificence.  It 
is  an  attribute  which  ought  to  be  most  dear  to  us, 
and  which  we  should  honor  with  a  special  devo- 
tion. If  the  tranquillity  of  holiness  comes  ot  our 
loving  to  be  overwhelmed  by  the  sovereignt}-  of 
God,  we  come  to  love  his  sovereignty  by  delight- 
ing in  his  magnificence. 

What  we  have  said  amounts  to  this.  The  mag:- 
nificencc  of  God  was  nowhere  more  needed  than 
in  the  Precious  Blood;  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
it  has  been  nowhere  more  shown.  It  was  of  Bur- 
passing  importance  to  us  that  it  should  be  so. 
Moreover,  we  have  seen  all  along  that  the  magni- 
ficence of  God  is  the  attribute  to  which  the  Pre- 
cious Blood  is  very  specially  addicted,  and  that 
the  attribute  of  dominion  is  never  separated  from 
that  of  magnificence.  The  Precious  Blood  con- 
quered creation  back  for  the  Creator,  and  recon- 
quered* the  lordship  of  creation  for  the  Sacred 
Humanity  of  Jesus.     It  is  a  magnificent  price  for 


TIIK    PRODIGALITY  OF   THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.    255 

sin,  because  it  is  infinite;  and  sin  is  only  infinite 
by  a  figure  of  speech  or  an  invention  of  mind. 
We  did  not  therefore  require  an  infinite  redemp- 
tion: though  on  the  side  of  God's  sanctity  there 
may  have  been  a  propriety,  looking  to  us  like  a 
necessity,  for  an  infinite  expiation.  Furthermore, 
one  drop  of  the  Precious  Blood  would  suffice  to 
redeem  all  possible  worlds;  so  we  did  not  require 
more  than  our  share  of  that  drop.  We  did  not 
require  of  absolute  necessity  that  it  should  be  so 
often  shed ;  or  that  it  should  be  shed  under  such 
a  variety  of  pathetic  circumstances,  every  one  of 
which  is  a  beautiful  allurement  of  love ;  or  that 
it  should  be  all  shed,  shed  even  by  a  miracle  of 
jealous  prodigality  after  death,  in  all  this,  the 
magnificence  of  God  goes  beyond  our  necessities, 
and  envelops  us  in  its  own  immensity.  But 
those  otEeF  wonders  of  his  magnificence,  that 
we  should  have  unrestricted,  repeated,  incessant 
access  to  the  Precious  Blood,  that  it  should  be 
to  us  more  copious,  more  prompt,  more  at  hand. 
more  abundant,  than  the  water  of  our  wells  and 
streams,  that  at  ever}-  turn  of  life  it  should  be 
conveyed  to  our  souls  by  glorious  aqueducts  of 
divine  invention,  namely,  the  Sacraments,  that  it 
should  be  as  common  and  as  convenient  to  the  life 
of  our  souls  as  the  air  is  to  the  life  of  our  bodies, — 
all  these  wonders  are  simply  necessities  to  a 
wretchedness  and  a  feebleness  so  utter  and  pros- 
trate as  ours.  The  sinfulness  of  sin  causes  us  to 
require  nothing  short  of  this.  Thus  there  are 
two  prodigalities  of  the  Precious  Blood,  both 
belonging  to  the  adorable  magnificence  of  God; 
but  one  of  which  is  a  simple  necessity  to  us,  while 


25G    TIIE   PRODIGALITY  OF   THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

the  other  is  a,  liberality  of  his  magnificence,  be- 
fitting his  love,  in  keeping  with  his  perfections, 

but  not  a  necessity  to  us. 

I  have  laid  some  stress  upon  this,  for  the  follow- 
ing- reason.  There  is  often  a  good  deal  of  exagge- 
ration in  devotional  hooks,  and  it  is  for  the  most 
part  practically  harmless.  Yet  there  arc  cases  in 
which  it  may  come  at  last  to  be  mischievous;  and 
these  are  generally  cases  where  the  exaggeration 
m  question  tends  to  give  an  erroneous  idea  of 
God,  and  especially  of  his  strictness  and  sanctity. 
Thus,  writers,  as  I  have  said  before,  sometimes 
speak  of  the  Incarnation  as  if  God  were  less  strict 
and  jealous  in  consequence  of  it;  and  this  leads 
men  not  to  think  sufficiently  of  mortification  and 
good  works.  So,  if  wo  dwell  one-sidedly  upon  the 
goodness  of  God  in  giving  us  such  abundant  access 
to  the  Precious  Blood,  we  may  easily  fall  into  an 
unreality.  Of  course,  it  would  have  been  a  won- 
derful disclosure  of  God's  magnificence,  if  he  had 
justified  us  once  for  all  in  Baptism  through  the 
Precious  Blood.  It  would  have  been  worthy  to 
have  sustained  the  wonder  of  the  angels  through 
eternity.  What  then  are  we  to  say  to  the  bewil- 
dering varieties,  facilities,  repetitions,  and  exube- 
rances of  the  Precious  Blood?  Plainly,  no  lan- 
guage that  we  can  use  can  really  exaggerate  the 
magnificence  of  God's  goodness  in  this  respect. 
But  we  may  come  to  think  that  we  wanted  less 
than  God  has  given  us,  that  his  magnificence  was 
not  a  necessity  to  us,  hut  that  the  very  meaning 
of  his  magnificence  is  excess,  is  his  doing  more 
than  we  require.  Thus,  we  become  less  careful 
ahout  corresponding   to  grace  and  ahout  fidelity 


THE    PRODIGALITY  OF   THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.    257 

to  inspirations.  We  imagine  ourselves  in  a  great 
wasteful  sea  of  grace,  which  we  may  move  about 
in.  as  a  fish  moves  ahout  in  the  waters  of  the 
ocean.,  drinking  when  it  will,  but  not  requiring 
for  its  whole  life  more  than  a  few  sips  of  the 
unfathomable  depths.  Whereas  the  truth  is,  that 
not  a  single  grace  comes  to  earth  which  does 
not  come  addressed  to  some  individual  soul,  and 
is  not  noted  by  God,  and  has  not  to  bo  given 
account  for  at  the  last.  There  is  not  one  least 
grace,  not  one  most  transient  inspiration,  which 
is  not  part  of  God's  accurate  and  orderly  provi- 
dence over  each  one  of  us  for  the  salvation  of 
our  souls.  Consequently  there  is  not  one  which 
can  safely  be  neglected.  We  have  no  more  grace 
than  we  require.  St.  Teresa  tells  us  that,  even 
where  the  grace  of  perfection  is  given,  it  is  often 
necessary  for  mere  salvation.  As  a  theological 
speculation,  we  could  be  saved  with  less;  but  in 
practice  Ave  should  be  lost  if  we  had  less. 

Thus,  while,  on  the  one  hand,  the  masters  of 
the  spiritual  life  warn  us  not  to  attempt  to  go 
beyond  our  grace,  they  teach  us  still  more  em- 
phatically that  we  must  be  faithful  to  the  grace 
we  have.  We  read  that  one  Communion  is 
enough  to  make  a  saint.  So  it  is  in  itself;  and 
it  is  important  that  we  should  know  this,  as  it 
brings  home  to  us  the  value  of  Communion.  Yet, 
in  fact,  hundreds  of  Communions  ma}*  in  our  case 
be  practically  necessary,  not  to  make  us  saints 
but  just  to  save  our  souls.  The  grand  practical 
mischief  to  men's  souls  is  the  neglect  of  the  Sa- 
craments. The  grand  practical  mistake  of  pious 
people  is  the  neglect  of  fidelity  to  grace.  1 
R  22* 


258    THE   PRODIGALITY  OF   TIIE   TBECIOUS   BLOOD. 

believe  that  unintentional]}'  spiritual  writers  are 
somewhat  to  blame  for  both  these  unfortunate 
delusions.  They  cannot  magnify  too  much  the 
magnificence  of  God.  They  cannot  magnify  too 
much  the  redeeming  grace  of  our  Blessed  Lord 
J3ut  they  may  magnify  both  one  and  the  other 
without  making  proper  distinctions.  What  I 
have  wanted  to  dwell  upon,  and  experience  has 
shown  me  the  utility  of  it,  is  that,  while  God's 
magnificence  gives  us  a  superabundance  of  grace, 
that  superabundance  is  not  in  reality  a  super- 
fluity. We  have  not  a  grace  which  we  can  afford 
to  spare.  Our  frequent  absolutions  are  not  too 
frequent  for  us;  nor  our  many  Communions,  if 
under  obedience,  too  man}'.  One  grace  may  be 
enough  in  itself  to  save  a  soul;  but  it  will  not 
save  it  if  it  was  not  precisely  meant  to  do  so.  Jt 
does  not  derogate  from  God's  magnificence,  that 
we  should  stand  absolutely  in  need  of  its  grand 
largeness.  But  the  knowledge  of  this  necessity 
gives  us  a  truer  view  of  our  wretchedness,  and  fos- 
ters our  humility.  So  also  God's  magnificence  is 
not  a  perfection  which  rough-rides  his  exactness, 
his  accuracy,  his  punctuality,  his  methodical  mi- 
nuteness, his  jealousy  of  law,  and  his  scrupulous 
distributions  and  proportions.  Yet  wo  often  speak 
as  if  it  did  do  so;  and  hence  we  come  to  think, 
not  to  put  into  words,  but  practically  to  think, 
that  God  in  Jesus  Christ  is  God  with  one  half  of 
his  ever-blessed  perfections  dispensing  themselves 
from  the  other  half.  This  lowers  our  standard  of 
his  sanctity;  and  whatever  lowers  that  lowers 
also  qui*  estimate  of  the  sinfulness  of  sin,  and  our 
carefulness  in  avoiding  little  sins.     May  I  consider 


THE   PRODIGALITY  OF  THE   PRECIOUS    IiLOOD.    25S 

that  I  have  proved   that   God's   magnificence  Is 

sometimes  a  necessity  to  us,  and  that  it  is  not  on 

that  account  less  magnificent  ? 

There  are  then  two  prodigalities  of  the  Precious 

Blood,  both  belonging  to  the  magnificence  of  God; 

and  one  of  the  two  belonging  also  to  our  necessi- 
ty     o 

ties.  We  must  examine  both  of  them.  As  I  said 
before,  the  very  choice  of  the  Precious  Blood  as 
the  instrument  of  our  redemption  is  part  of  God's 
magnificence.  There  were  merit  and  satisfaction 
enough  in  a  single  tear  of  the  Infant  Jesus  to  have 
redeemed  us  all.  Nothing  in  the  external  works 
of  God  is  necessary;  and  therefore  the  Precious 
Blood  is  not  necessary.  God  was  free  to  have 
chosen  some  other  expiation,  or  he  was  free  to 
have  pardoned  us  without  any  expiation  at  all. 
Yet  nothing  is  merely  gratuitous  with  God; 
nothing  is  unnecessary,  even  though  it  be  not 
necessary.  There  was  doubtless  on  the  side  of  the 
divine  perfections  such  a  propriety  and  fitness  in 
the  choice  of  an  infinite  sacrifice  for  sin,  that  it 
was  in  one  sense  necessary  to  have  one  There 
were  doubtless,  in  the  depths  of  the  same  per- 
fections, reasons  and  fitnesses  for  the  Precious 
Blood  of  the  Incarnate  Word  being  chosen  for  that 
sacrifice,  which  may  form  part  of  the  blessed 
science  of  another  life.  Divine  love,  divine  justice, 
and  divine  sanctity,  have  necessities  of  their  own, 
which  do  not  interfere  with  their  freedom.  All 
this,  then,  belongs  to  the  magnificence  of  God 
without  belonging  to  our  necessit}';  and  may  be 
considered  truly  as  a  prodigality  of  the  divine 
compassion.  But  I  will  illustrate  what  I  may  now 
venture,  without  fear  of  being  misunderstood,  to 


2G'J  THE    PRODIGALITY    OF    TIIE   PBECIOUS   IJLOOD 

call  tlic  unnecessary  prodigality  of  the  Precious 
Blood  by  the  manner  and  circumstances  in  and 
under  which  it  was  shed  during  the  Three-and- 
Thirty  Years;  and  we  shall  be  most  closely  follow- 
ing the  mind  of  the  Church,  if  we  select,  as  our 
examples,  the  Seven  Eloodsheddings,  which  aro 
put  before  us  as  the  objects  of  intlulgeneed  devo- 
tions. 

There  has  been  some  variety  in  the  enumeration 
of  the  Seven  Bloodsheddings  by  different  holy 
persons,  though  the  difference  has  been  little  more 
than  one  of  division.  The  enumeration  which  we 
shall  follow  is  the  one  approved  and  indulgenced 
by  Pius  the  Seventh.  The  Seven  are  the  Circum 
cision,  the  Agony,  the  Scourging,  the  Crowning 
with  Thorns,  the  Way  of  the  Cross,  the  Crucifixion, 
and  the  Piercing  of  the  Sacred  Heart.  There  is 
no  doubt  a  divine  intention  in  these  particular 
seven  mysteries.  "We  shall  find  that  the)-  illustrate 
in  a  most  complete  and  touching  manner  the  spirit 
of  the  Precious  Blood.  While  they  are  like  each 
other,  they  are  also  different.  They  have  that 
mixture  of  likeness  and  of  difference,  which  so 
often  makes  up  the  beauty  of  divine  works.  One 
of  them  belongs  to  the  Infancy,  and  the  other  six 
to  the  Passion.  Six  of  them  were  sufferings  of 
Jesus,  and  one  was  that  mute  preaching  of  his 
love  which  took  place  after  he  was  dead.  The 
first  and  the  last  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  re- 
demption of  the  world;  the  first  because  it  had  no 
connection  with  his  death,  and  the  last  because  it 
only  took  place  after  he  was  already  dead.  Of 
some  of  the  others  also,  but  less  certainly,  we  may 
say  that  they  did  not  belong  to  our  redemption 


THE    PRODIGALITY   OF    THE    I'RECIOUS   BLOOD.  2dl 

At  all  of  them  our  Blessed  Lady  was  present,  in 
spirit,  if  not  in  both-,  and  all  of  them  were  sorrows 
to  her  immaculate  heart.  In  the  number  of  times 
that  the  Blood  was  shed,  in  the  quantity  shed,  and 
in  the  mysterious  manners  ofits  shedding,  it  is  the 
magnificence  of  God  which  is  revealing  the  excesses 
of  his  love.  Each  Bloodshedding  has  its  own  way 
of  touching  our  hearts,  and  its  own  attraction  for 
our  devotion.  The  whole  Seven  together  have  also 
a  distinctive  unity,  and  form  a  complete  picture 
and  a  definite  spirit  in  our  souls. 

The  first  Bloodshedding  was  the  Circumcision. 
To  the  Heart  of  Jesus,  already  enamored  of  sor- 
row and  suffering,  seven  days  were  enough  for  the 
tranquil  joys  of  Bethlehem,  joys  over  whose  tran- 
quillity the  shadow  of  Calvary  was  already  cast. 
The  stainless  Mother  had  only  one  short  octave  of 
the  Precious  Blood  for  her  own  delight.  She  knew 
its  mission  and  its  mystery.  She  saw  it  in  the 
almost  transparent  vase  of  the  Infant  Body.  She 
saw  the  pulses  of  its  life  heat  with  all  the  natural 
rapidity  of  childhood.  Through  the  veil  of  snowy 
skin  she  saw  its  purple  streams.  From  time  to 
time  she  saw  it  mantle  in  his  Face,  and  flush  his 
little  cheek.  She  saw  its  coral  upon  those  tiny  lips, 
over  which  were  to  Aoav  the  words  of  everlasting 
life,  and  also  the  awful  judgments  of  uncounted 
millions  of  human  souls.  In  the  still  nia-ht  she 
heard  its  throbbing,  and  adored  the  mysteries  of 
that  busy  sleep,  the  secrets  of  that  silent  Heart. 
When  she  clasped  him  to  her  breast,  she  felt  the 
beatings  of  the  Precious  Blood,  and  knew  that  it 
was  the  harmless  force  of  the  vast  omnipotence, 
which  had  with  such  sweet  craft  imprisoned  itself 


2'.')'2  THE    TRODIOALITY   OF    THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

in  the  frailty  and  the  littleness  of  a  new-born  Babo 
She  knew  it  was  that  Blood,  which  the  justice  of 
the  Father  sought  after.  She  knew  how  lovingly 
and  how  severely  his  sanctity  thirsted  for  its  shed- 
ding. She  was  awe-struck  with  the  thoughts  which 
crowded  upon  her;  and  yet,  those  amazing 
thoughts!  how  full  of  joyousness  the}'  were!  She 
knew  the  temper  of  that  dear  Blood,  and  bore 
with  its  impatience,  an  impatience  which  love 
might  have  deemed  unreasonable;  only  that  the 
love  of  Jesus  is  the  adoration  of  him  also.  lie  had 
hastened  the  time  of  his  coming,  because  of  the 
loveliness  of  Mary.  He  had  been  impatient  even 
in  heaven.  .Now  he  had  come  into  her  arms.  lie 
had  looked  in  her  eyes  but  seven  short  days.  How 
much  the  two  silences  of  the  Mother  and  the  Son 
had  to  say  to  each  other!  Could  he  not  rest  a 
while?  Need  he  begin  redeeming  all  at  once? 
Nay,  he  cannot  redeem  yet.  There  are  Three-and- 
Thirty  Years  to  be  spent  before  that,  crowded 
with  the  fulfilment  of  numerous  eternal  purposes. 
No!  he  cannot  rest.  He  could  not  rest  in  his 
Father's  Bosom.  He  cannot  rest  in  his  Mother's 
arms.  His  rest  is  in  the  shedding  of  his  Blood. 
Let  the  Child  shed  his  Blood,  and  then  he  will  be 
content  to  rest:  and  so  he  shed  it  in  the  Circumci- 
sion, being  yet  but  eight  days  old. 

Strange  thought!  but  there  were  seven  days 
during  which  our  Blessed  Lord  was  nameless. 
How  did  Joseph  name  him?  if  indeed,  in  the  ful- 
ness of  his  joy,  that  peaceful  saint  needed  to  speak 
at  all.  Now  with  the  Blood  comes  the  sweet 
Name  of  Jesus,  as  if  he  had  no  right  to  it,  until 
he  shed  his  Blood.    Impatient  Blood!    Yet  its  first 


THE    PRODIGALITY    OF    THE    TRECIOUS   BLOOD.  2G3 

net  is  to  put  itself  beneath  (he  law!  It  will  begin 
by  obeying,  though  it  is  in  no  wise  bound  to  such 
obedience.  It  will  let  itself  be  taken  captive  by  a 
ritual,  as  soon  as  it  is  born.  See  how  full  it  is, 
from  the  first,  cf  the  law-loving  instincts  of  God's 
magnificence.  But  of  what  use  were  those  first 
drops  of  that  Precious  Blood  ?  They  had  no 
redeeming  power  in  them,  because  tbey  were  dis- 
connected from  his  Death.  They  were  not  a  part 
of  the  Blood  shed  fur  the  sins  of  the  world.  Doubt- 
less they  had  special  purposes  and  did  secret  won- 
ders, as  we  have  already  seen  in  the  revelation  to 
Frances  of  the  Mother  of  God.*  All  the  things 
of  God  are  pregnant  with  undisclosed  mysteries, 
are  endowed  with  unsuspected  powers,  and  havo 
eternally-foreseen  destinations.  For  us  it  is  enough 
to  see  in  this  dear  impatience,  in  this  sweet  child- 
like waste,  if  we  may  dare  thus  to  speak,  most 
touching  revelations  of  our  Savior's  love.  The 
days  of  type  and  figure  had  not  yet  gone  by;  and 
he  gave  us  this  mystery  as  a  type  and  figure  of 
his  future  life  and  work,  lie  taught  us  doctrine 
by  it  also,  the  doctrine  that,  now  that  man  had 
fallen,  he  had  only  assumed  his  Blood  in  order 
that  he  might  shed  it,  It  was  so  completely  fur 
us,  that  it  was  more  ours  than  his.  By  needin«- 
redemption,  Ave  made  his  Blood  more  utterly  and 
more  intimately  ours,  than  if  we  had  never  sinned. 
All  things  turn  to  love,  all  things  turn  to  our  profit, 
when  they  belong  to  Jesus.  Perhaps,  too,  this 
mystery  was  also  very  specially  for  St.  Joseph.  It 
was  his  Calvary.     He  saw  no  more  of  the  Passion, 


*  See  pages  215,  216. 


264  THE  PRODIGALITY  OF  THE  PRECIOUS  BLOOD. 

except  that  it  was  shown  him  mystically,  and  that, 
after  the  fashion  of  the  saints,  he  was  perhaps  made 
partaker  of  its  mysteries  and  inward  Btigmata. 
Otherwise  he  saw  the  Precious  Blood  no  more, 
until  the  morning  of  Easter.  Joseph  counted  for 
much  in  the  plans  of  God.  He  shared  all,  or  most, 
of  those  Mary-haunting  years  at  Nazareth,  when 
the  whole  wide  world  without  had  hut  a  three 
years'  Ministry  bestowed  upon  it.  Doubtless 
many  mysteries  of  the  early  years  of  Jesus  were 
meant  singularly  for  St.  Joseph.  This  Circumci- 
sion was  his  one  mystery  of  the  Precious  Blood. 
It  begins  each  year  for  us.  It  is  our  new  year's 
day.  It  braids  upon  the  front  of  every  coming 
year  of  life  the  Namo  of  Jesus,  our  life's  dear 
Lord,  and  it  braids  it  in  those  red  snow-drops  of 
his  Infancy,  the  first  blossoms  of  his  Precious 
Blood. 

But  who  shall  tell  the  share  of  Mary  in  this 
mystery?  It  was  an  exceeding  joy  to  her;  for  to 
what  holy  heart  would  not  the  sight  of  the  Pre- 
cious Blood  be  a  jubilee?  It  had  been  a  wondrous 
joy  to  her,  after  her  months  of  expectation,  to  see 
the  Face  of  Jesus  in  the  cave  of  Bethlehem.  It 
was  a  beauty,  the  thought  of  which  had  fed  her 
desires,  but  the  reality  of  which  was  bliss  unspeak- 
able. So  now  it  was  a  joy,  in  which  was  mingled 
perhaps  still  more  of  wonder,  to  see  the  Precious 
Blood,  which  had  purchased  her  own  Immaculate 
Conception,  and  the  redemption  of  all  mankind.  It 
was  a  joy  to  her  also  to  read  in  our  Lord's  trans- 
lucent Heart  the  inward  dispositions  in  which  ho 
first  shed  his  Blood.  His  abounding  gladness,  his 
inexpressible  adoration  of  God,  his  intense  love  of 


THE   PRODIGALITY   OF   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD.  2G5 

souls,  the  unsearchable  riches  which  his  own  Blood 
was  to  himself,  as  enabling  him  to  satisfy  so  many 
loves  and  so  many  worships, — all  these  things  she 
saw,  and  rejoicing  she  adored.  Doubtless  also 
man}'  hidden  meanings  of  the  mystery  were  visible 
to  the  clear  eye  of  her  sinless  soul.  At  the  same 
time  it  was  a  bitter  grief  as  well.  It  was  a  public 
beginning  of  sorrows,  as  the  marriage  at  Cana  was 
the  public  beginning  of  miracles.  As  her  dolors 
at  the  foot  of  the  Cross  made  her  one  of  his  exe- 
cutioners, so  his  little  Passion  now  was  her  own 
ministry.  If,  as  some  think",  and  it  seems  by  far 
the  truest  thought,  it  was  her  own  hand  which 
shed  the  Blood,  who  does  not  sec  how  fitting  it 
was  that  she  first  should  shed  that  Blood  which, 
before  all  others  and  above  all  others,  was  to  be 
shed  for  her? 

Long  years  have  passed  since  that  cruel  New 
Year's  Day  of  the  guiltless  Babe  of  Bethlehem; 
and  now  another  scene  opens  to  our  view.  It  is 
the  Agony  in  the  Garden.  The  spot  looks  tranquil, 
innocent,  and  unconscious  now,  when  the  crisp 
foliage  of  the  olives  turns  its  silver  lining  to  the 
wind,  and,  within  the  latticed  fence  of  the  Fran- 
ciscan friars,  the  tall  sceptres  of  the  golden-rod 
rise  up  from  among  the  trailing  gourds,  and  the 
roses  bloom  among  the  yellow  flowers,  and  all  is 
gay  and  garden-like.  But  it  was  once  the  scene 
of  a  fearful  mystery,  the  mystery  of  the  second 
Bloodshedding.  Jesus  kneels  there.  lie  is  now  a 
grown-up  man.  Three-and-thirty  years  have 
passed  over  him.  They  have  been  the  longest,  be- 
cause the  fullest,  years  that  earth  has  ever  known. 
II is  weary  Ministry  of  three  years  has  drawn  to 

23 


2G6    THE    ritODIGALITY    OF   THE   TRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

its  close.  He  has  often  been  weary  lie  was 
weary  when  he  sat  by  Jacob's  well  and  asked  the 
Samaritan  woman  for  an  alms  of  the  cold  fresh 
water  which  lie  himself  had  created.  lie  has 
been  weary  on  the  mountain-sides,  when  he  prayed 
instead  of  sleeping-,  while  the  moon  shone  tremu- 
lously on  the  limestone  rocks,  as  if  it  hardly  dared 
to  light  up  the  furtive  figure  of  its  Creator  keep- 
ing watch  among  the  crags.  But  his  love  of  souls 
has  never  yet  been  tired.  His  weariness  has  never 
reached  the  yearnings  of  his  Sacred  Heart.  This 
Thursday  night  amidst  the  olives  we  find  him  still 
unchanged.  We  ventured  to  charge  his  dear  love 
with  impatience  three-and-thirty  years  ago.  We 
charge  it  with  impatience  now.  Why  will  not  the 
Precious  Blood  keep  back  until  its  time?  Can  it 
not  wait  now  some  twelve  or  fifteen  hours  more 
for  Calvary  ?  It  is  the  way  of  human  desire  to 
grow  more  impatient,  as  it  draws  nearer  to  its 
object.  See  what  a  true  human  heart  this  Heart  of 
■lesus  is  !  We  dare  to  love  it  more  when  it  looks  so 
very  human.  To-morrow  men  will  crucify  his 
blessed  Body,  and  pour  out  his  Blood  like  water. 
But  to-morrow  is  not  soon  enough.  To-night  his 
adorable  Soul,  that  King  among  creatures,  that 
royallest  of  all  the  works  of  God,  will  itself  crucify 
his  Body.  He  will  suffer  a  martyrdom  to-night  even 
more  mysterious  thai)  that  martyrdom  on  Calvary. 
What  impatience!  What  precipitation  !  He  began 
his  ministry  by  an  act  of  precipitation,  by  work- 
ing a  miracle  before  his  time,  because  his  Mother 
asked  him.  He  ends  it  with  another  act  of  pre- 
cipitation: he  anticipates  his  Passion.  But  what 
is  it  about  him  which  is  so   impatient?     It  is  his 


THE   FR0I'[3ALITY   OF    THE    l'KL  CIOUS    BLOOD.    2G7 

Blood.  It  is  burning  to  be  shed.  It  longs  to  lcavo 
its  sanctuary  in  the  Sacred  Heart,  as  it' it  were 
wearied  with  so  much  waiting.  He  himself  had 
waited  four  thousand  years  before  he  came. 
There  was  delay  enough  then.  Now  all  things 
arc  quickened,  arc  even  anticipated.  ]t  is  the 
pulses  of  the  Precious  Blood  which  are  hurrying 
all  things  forward.  See  now  what  that  Soul  is 
doing.  It  gathers  round  it  all  the  sins  of  men, 
manifold,  multitudinous,  ponderous.  Over  its 
beautiful  sanctity  it  puts  on  all  this  hideous  ap- 
parel, which  hums  like  poison  and  like  fire.  It 
clothes  itself  thus  with  the  most  awful  human 
shudderings.  He  only  preserves  his  life  by  an 
energetic  miracle.  Kever  on  earth  was  there  such 
mortal  heaviness,  such  aching  sadness,  such  a  dry- 
ing up  of  life's  fountains,  such  a  tormenting  lan- 
guor, such  an  exceeding  sickening  of  soul.  Then 
it  lifts  up  its  hands,  that  mighty  Soul,  as  if  with 
more  than  Samson's  strength  it  were  about  to  pull 
down  the  big  heavens  upon  itself;  and  it  draws 
down  upon  itself  the  huge  storm  of  God's  eternal 
justice  and  overwhelming  wrath,  and  then  lies 
crushed  beneath  it,  a  plaintive  Human  Life  almost 
extinguished,  and  only  not  extinguished  because 
it  is  a  Divine  Life  as  well.  Such  Manhood!  Such 
Godhead  !  Who  is  equal  to  so  terrible  a  mj-stery'r" 
Ah,  Jesus  !  how  dreadful  is  this  solitude,  which  is 
even  deepened  by  the  presence  of  that  one  trem- 
bling angel  whom  thy  erics  have  drawn  from 
heaven  !  The  Sacred  Heart  can  bear  no  more.  It 
gives  out  its  red  life,  as  in  a  wine-press.  Drop  by 
drop,  unnaturally,  through  the  burning  pores  of 
the  skin,  the  beads  of  Blood  ooze  out.    They  stand 


2G8    THE    PRODIGALITY   OF   THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

upon  his  brow,  and  then  roll  down  his  face.  They 
clog  his  hair.  They  blind  his  eyes.  They  till 
his  mouth,  otherwise  than  as  the  chalice  of  his 
Blood  tilled  it  three  hours  ago.  They  mat  his 
beard.  They  wet  his  hands.  They  suffuse  every 
limb  as  in  a  universal  Sweat  of  Blood.  They  stain 
his  garments.  They  ruddy  the  olive-roots.  They 
spot  the  white  dust  with  black.  Truly,  if  ever 
suffering  was  beautiful, — and  how  little  suffering 
there  has  been  on  earth  that  was  not  beautiful! — 
it  was  the  woe  which  the  paschal  moon  beheld 
beneath  the  olive-trees  that  night. 

Who  can  tell  the  mj'steries  of  this  Second  Blood- 
shedding?  Yet  here  again  we  have  the  same 
feature  of  prodigality.  This  Blood  shed  itself 
through  the  desire  of  redeeming  the  world;  }'et 
it  did  not  itself  redeem  it,  because  it  was  not  the 
Blood  of  his  death.  It  was  his  own  act,  not  the 
appointed  sacrificial  act  of  others.  But  what  a 
vast  signifieancy  of  love  there  was  in  this  mira- 
culous portent  of  the  Bloody  Sweat !  He  was 
straitened,  it  was  his  own  word,  with  eagerness 
for  his  Passion.  He  had  desired  with  desire,  it  is 
his  own  expletive,  to  drink  his  own  Blood  with 
his  disciples.  So  had  he  desired  with  desire  to 
shed  it,  and  thus  he  had  anticipated  noondaj"  at 
midnight,  and  had  made  a  Calvary  of  Olivet. 
Mary  was  present  in  the  garden,  though  she  was 
also  in  the  house  of  John.  All  men  were  asleep. 
Alas!  even  the  three  Apostles  close  at  hand  were 
sleeping.  Only  Judas  was  awake,  and  the  handful 
of  the  servitors  of  tyranny  that  were  with  him. 
Yet  even  for  them  Jesus  would  not  wait.  His 
Blood  so  burned  with  love  of  souls  that  it  could 


THE    ntODIGALITY   OF    TI1£    TRECIOUS    BLOOD.    2G9 

not  contain  any  longer  its  impetuous  instinct  to 
be  shed.  He  could  get  no  man  to  wound  him  in 
that  lonely  garden,  which  had  been  to  him  so  often 
a  sweet  haunt  for  prayer.  So  he  let  his  heart, 
wound  him  from  within.  Observe  also  that  the 
very  pressure  of  his  Passion  in  thought  could  only 
translate  itself  into  the  language  of  a  Bloodshed- 
ding.  When  the  vehement,  ponderous  justice  of 
God  crushed  him  to  the  earth,  the  mark  that  it 
left  upon  the  earth,  as  afterward  on  the  napkin 
of  Veronica,  was  an  impression  traced  in  Blood. 
The  sin  he  had  assumed  was  within  him;  it  had 
sunk  into  him ;  the  anger  of  the  Father  was  upon 
him.  Thus  the  inward  and  the  outward  of  his 
Passion  met,  and  they  were  one — in  Blood. 

The  sun  in  the  heavens  and  the  shadows  in  the 
streets  mark  it  to  be  about  nine  of  the  moraine 
in  Jerusalem.  It  is  the  hour  of  the  Third  Blood- 
sheddinff,  the  Scourging.  This  is  the  most  intole- 
rable  of  all  the  mysteries'of  our  Blessed  Savior's 
Passion.  It  is  the  one  which  is  the  hardest  to  con- 
template in  the  quietness  of  prayer.  There  is 
something  revolting  in  the  anguish  of  sheer  bodily 
pain.  There  is  something  degrading  in  the  inten- 
tional infliction  of  shame.  Yet  these  two  horrors 
are  combined  in  the  mystery  of  the  Scourging. 
Our  Lord  is  left  in  the  hands  of  the  vilest  satellites 
of  criminal  justice.  There  is  neither  the  pomp  of 
a  court,  nor  the  pageant  of  an  execution.  He  is 
at  the  mercy  of  the  vilest  and  most  abhorred  of 
men.  The  punishment  is  one,  in  his  case,  without 
check,  without  measure,  and  without  order.  When 
we  think  of  the  contact  of  their  loathsome  hands, 
and   their   abominable   sacrilege  in   stripping   his 

23* 


270    THE    PRODIGALITY   OF   THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

Sacred  Body,  a  shudder  of  anguish  passes  all 
through  us,  as  though  some  secret  sanctuary  of  God 
were  being  violated.  The  shame  of  it  seems  to 
gather  round  ourselves,  and  we  are  hardly  al>le  to 
hold  up  our  heads.  We  pray  about  it  with  our 
eyes  shut  as  if  by  instinct.  The  shape,  the  gaze, 
the  variety,  of  the  instruments  of  torture  are  alike 
horrible.  The  muscular  violence  and  brutal 
gestures  of  the  executioners  offend  our  very 
thought.  Then  the  sounds!  the  dull  sounds  of 
the  scourges  as  they  fall  upon  the  living  Holy  of 
Holies,  monotonous  yet  various,  chanjnns:  as  the 
whips  are  changed,  and  then  the  wet  sound  as  the 
thongs  become  soaked  with  Blood, — who  can  bear 
them  ?.  The  echoes  from  the  houses  in  the  place, 
and  the  spiritual  echoes  from  out  the  indignant 
meek  heart  of  the  outraged  Mother, — are  they  not 
fearful  also  1  The  sound,  hardly  perceptible  till 
the  ear  becomes  unnaturally  quickened  by  excite- 
ment, as  of  light-falling  rain,  which  we  know  to 
he  the  Precious  Blood,  mingles  with  that  still 
fainter  sound,  as  of  the  almost  inaudible  bleating 
of  a  dying  lamb,  which  we  know  to  be  the  Voice 
of  God,  complaining  with  that  inextinguishable 
human  tenderness.  Though  our  eyes  are  closed, 
we  see  the  staring  looks,  the  compressed  lips,  the 
ferocious  countenances,  the  knotted  arms,  the  rude 
swarthy  chests,  of  the  myrmidons  of  cruelty, 
denaturalized  by  the  brutality  of  their  task.  We 
see  them  sprinkled  with  Precion.,  Blood,  which 
mixes  with  their  sweat  and  rolls  down  their  limbs 
with  discolored  stains.  Him  we  do  not  see,  even 
with  the  eves  of  our  souls;  for  we  have  thrown 
ourselves  on  the  pavement  in  his  Blood,  and  are 


THE   PRODIGALITY   OF    THE    PHECIOUS   BI.OOD.    271 

holding  his  feet  and  arc  devouring  them  with  kisses. 

It  is  an  intolerable  mystery ;  yet,  if  we  love  him. 
we  must  endure  it.  We  must  not  be  fastidious. 
He  was  not.  We  sent  him  to  this.  It  was  suffered 
for  us.  We  must  not  turn  away.  It  is  an  intole- 
rable mystery;  but  it  has  a  sweet  gift.  There  is 
no  mystery  of  the  Passion  which,  so  uncovers  his 
Divinity  to  us.  It  is  almost  like  a  vision  of  the 
Godhead.  There  is  no  mystery  which  tills  our 
souls  so  full  of  so  deep  an  adoration. 

But  in  this  third  Bloodshedding  there  is  the 
same  character  of  prodigality.  It  was  shed  in  an 
excess  of  pain  and  an  excess  of  shame;  and  it  was 
shed  in  an  excess  of  wasteful  copiousness.  It  was 
as  if  it  foresaw  how  on  the  Cross  it  would  have 
but  five  local  vents,  five  wells  distilling  salvation 
for  the  world,  and  it  could  not  bear  to  be  thus 
restricted.  So  now  it  presents  the  whole  surface 
of  the  Body,  that  it  may  be  able  to  gush  forth  in 
unrestrained  abundance,  as  from  one  vast  wound. 
A  thousand  channels,  all  gifted  with  exquisite  sen- 
sation, and  now  burning  with  insufferable  fire,  are 
torn  up  and  lacerated  with  the  scourges.  Streams 
of  Precious  Blood,  infinite  in  price,  each  of  them 
laden  with  the  magnificence  of  God,  broke  forth 
in  hundreds  of  places.  Yet  the  Blood  of  the. 
Column  was  not  the  Blood  shed  upon  the  Cross. 
It  did  not  redeem  the  world,  nor  was  it  necessary 
to  its  redemption.  It  was  simply  one  of  tho 
mysterious  magnificences  of  the  Precious  Blood 
Moreover  the  Blood  of  the  Scourging  was  sprinkled 
as  it  were  at  random  over  careless  multitudes,  as 
if  it  were  in  type  or  prophecy  of  its  future  sacra- 
mental prodigality.     Our  blessed  Lord  himself  ap- 


272    illE   PRODIGALITY   OF   THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

peared  in  strange  .symbolical  guise  in  this  Third 
Blood  shedding.  In  the  Agony  he  had  been  seen 
by  the  Father  clad  in  all  the  darkness  of  human 
sin.  No  human  eye  saw  him  in  the  shadowy 
moonlight,  nor  could  have  discerned  his  tearful 
transfiguration,  even  if  it  could  have  seen  him.  But 
now  he  was  an  open  symbol  to  the  eit}*  and  the 
people.  He  was  bathed  in  his  own  Blood.  Ho 
was  clad  in  a  living  robe  of  royal  purple.  He, 
the  Redeemer,  put  on  the  image  of  the  redeemed. 
As  his  Church  was  always  to  be,  so  was  he  then, 
all  red  with  Precious  Blood.  As  he  was  in  the 
open  place  of  Jerusalem,  so  arc  we  in  our  Father's 
eyes  at  this  hour,  so  shall  we  be  in  our  happiness 
through  all  eternity,  red,  and  red  all  over,  with 
the  glorious  dye,  better  than  that  old  imperial  dye 
of  Tyre,  of  his  most  Precious  Blood.  As  he  was 
in  his  shame  and  misery,  so  shall  we  be  in  our 
glory  and  our  joy,  all  beautified  with  Blood,  that 
self-same  Blood  wherewith  they  clothed  him  when 
they  had  stripped  him  of  his  garments. 

But  now  the  Precious  Blood  has  swiftly  formed 
a  habit  of  being  shed;  and  who  shall  stay  it?  It 
was  with  no  bitterness,  but  with  truthfullest  love, 
that  Jesus  named  that  Friday  the  Day  of  his 
Espousals.  But  we  read  that  his  Jewish  mother 
crowned  him  with  a  diadem  in  the  day  of  his 
espousals.  "Whose  heart  does  not  leap  up  at  the 
thought  of  such  a  mystery, — the  Coronation  of  the 
Creator  by  his  creatures?  Crowned  as  is  each 
man's  life  with  a  beautiful  coronal  wreathed  for 
him  by  divine  love  out  of  all  God's  perfections, 
what  grateful  crown  shall  they  set  upon  His  Head 
who  has  set  them  free  by  reigning  over  them  as 


THE    PRODIGALITY   OF   TI1K    TRECIOUS   T5LOOD     27o 

King?  Alas!  it  is  another  Bloodshedding,  the 
Fourth  Bloodshedding,  the  Crowning  of  Thorns. 
It  is  his  dear  dominion  which  is  distasteful  to  their 
hearts.  They  cannot  bear  that  he  should  call  him- 
Belfa  King.  They  would  fain  deride  his  kingship; 
but  they  feel  and  fear  it  all  the  while.  If  he  had 
never  been  a  King  before,  had  he  not  heeome  one 
now  through  the  very  royalty  of  his  gentleness 
under  the  ignominies  of  the  past  night  and  the 
outrages  of  that  morning?  Onlv  a  king's  face 
could  look  so  venerable  through  such  disfigurement. 
But  his  sweetness  embittered  them.  It  sank  them 
in  their  own  estimation.  It  taunted  them  by  the 
mildness  of  its  silence.  There  was  something  so 
worshipful  in  his  woe  that  it  uncrowned  their 
vulgar  bravery.  His  look  humbled  them,  because 
it  was  so  beautiful.  So  in  the  blindness  of  their 
malice  they  wrought  a  divine  mystery.  They 
crowned  him  King.  The  oppressed  are  given  to 
be  oppressors,  and  the  violent  to  be  brutal.  If 
there  be  no  other  use  of  the  Eternal  God  for 
Roman  soldiers,  at  least  he  shall  relieve  the  tedium 
of  a  Syrian  guard-room.  They  have  trouble 
enough  with  these  Jewish  criminals;  they  shall 
have  sport  out  of  them  also.  Sun  and  rain  had 
come  alternately  on  the  green  briers,  which  the 
unsuspecting  earth  had  grown  for  the  Creator. 
They  had  trailed  over  the  sward.  They  had 
tangled  themselves  with  many  a  juicy  shoot. 
They  had  grown  up  into  matted  bushes,  and  the 
sun  of  autumn  had  hardened  their  soft  spikes  into 
strong,  tough  barbs.  Perhaps  the  honey-bees  had 
come  to  their  flowers  to  extract  sweetness,  and 
the  restless  butterflies  had  been  attracted  for  a 
s 


274   THE   PRODIGALITY   OF   THE   TRECIOUS   BEOOD. 

moment  by  their  aromatic  fragrance,  01  the  bird  a 
h:i<l  rifled  their  golden  berries  with  their  beaks. 
But  who  would  have  dreamed  that  they  were  yet 
to  be  gilded  with  the  Blood  of  their  Creator?  Pro- 
tecting their  hard-skinned  hands  with  their  leathern 
gauntlets,  the  soldiers  weave  a  crown  of  these 
sharp  and  obstinate  thorns.  "What  matter  if  it  be 
not  exact!}'  round?  What  matter  if  it  be  not 
made  to  tit  the  bead  of  their  mock  Csesar?  With 
jest,  and  gibe,  and  heathen  oath,  the  rough  work 
is  speedily  accomplished.  Then  they  rise  and 
come  near  their  Kins;.  It  is  not  as  we  draw  near 
to  the  Blessed  Sacrament,  or  the  angels  to  the 
Throne.  Jesus  is  sitting  on  a  bench.  We  hardly 
dare  to  look  at  him,  he  is  so  God  like  in  his  abjec- 
tion. How  love  constrains  our  hearts  to  worship, 
and  then  how  worship  encourages  our  hearts  to 
love!  How  patiently  lie  sits,  blood-stained,  dis- 
honored, wan  and  pale,  yet  strangely  pleasant  to 
look  on.  and  exceeding  gracious  !  They  come  nigh 
to  the  Eternal.  They  are  reeking  with  sin,  and 
swa<r<rerino;  in  their  recklessness.  The  jniard-room 
is  silent I3-  filling  with  the  splendor  of  bis  God- 
head. Ho  they  not  see  it?  No!  Fearless  and 
peremptory  and  loud,  the}'  lay  hands  on  his  long 
hair.  If  they  only  waited  a  moment,  they  might, 
feel  the  pulses  of  that  blessed  life  beating  in  his 
Head.  They  swear  by  their  gods,  and  make  vulgar 
pleasantries  in  their  Roman  tongue,  as  if  before  a 
foreigner.  But  they  see  by  the  Hebrew's  lace 
that  he  knows  Latin.  It  is  but  an  amusement  the 
more.  They  thrust  the  crown  upon  his  Head  with 
rude  vehemence.  It  is  not  round.  It  will  not  fit. 
They  force  the  spikes  into  his  sk;n;  and  the  Blood 


THE    PRODIGALITY    OF   THE   TRECIOUS   BIOOD.    275 

comes,  blackly  and  slowly,  and  with  excruciating 
pain.  The  Jews  cheer  these  Romans  in  their  bar- 
barity; and  one  of  them,  not  without  loud  jocose 
applause,  takes  a  heavy  reed  and  beats  the  crown 
into  the  Sufferer's  Head.  Long  spikes  go  under 
the  skin  of  the  forehead,  and  come  out  above  the 
eyes.  Others  pierce  his  cars.  Others  fret  against 
the  nerves  of  his  neck.  Others  penetrate  the 
skull,  and  burn  like  prickles  of  fire.  He  trembles 
from  head  to  foot  with  the  intolerable  agony.  His 
beautiful  eyes  are  clouded  with  pain.  His  lips  are 
bloodless  with  the  extremity  of  endurance.  But 
the  face  of  a  sleeping  child  is  not  more  sweet  than 
his,  nor  its  heart  more  calm.  He  has  grown  more 
beautiful,  now  that  he  is  crowned.  O  Precious 
Blood !  Lover  of  God's  Dominion !  Thou  hast 
thirsted  for  thy  kingdom  long;  but  with  what 
strange  and  startling  ritual  hast  thou  ordained  thy 
Coronation  ! 

In  this  Fourth  Bloodshedding  there  was  not 
much  Blood.  Yet  it  was  not  without  its  note  of 
prodigality.  If  it  was  little,  it  was  very  precious; 
for  it  was  the  Blood  of  his  Head.  It  was  the 
Blood  which  had  just  been  feeding  his  brain,  the 
Blood  by  the  help  of  which  he  had  been  thinking 
unutterable  thoughts.  Each  of  those  thoughts 
had  been  broader  and  deeper  than  an  angel's 
science.  They  had  been  sweeter  and  gentler  than 
a  mother's  love.  They  had  all  been  tinctured 
with  that  passionate  love  of  souls  which  was  the 
spirit  of  the  Precious  Blood.  The  Blood  shed  was 
little:  but  why  was  it  shed  at  all?  Our  Lord's 
Head  had  envied  his  Bod}-.  His  whole  Body  had 
been  ploughed  and  seamed  by  the  scourges.     Each 


27G    THE   TRODIGALITY    OF   THE   TRECIOUS    I5LOOD. 

limb  had  made  its  offering  of  Blood.  But  they 
were  not  to  slay  him;  and  so  they  had  not 
scourged  his  Head,  though  doubtless  in  their  care- 
less fury  chance  bruises  were  made  upon  it.  Mow 
the  Head  will  take  its  turn.  Jt  will  have  a  whole 
Bloodshedding  to  itself.  Indeed,  it  will  do  more 
than  take  its  turn.  If  the  Heart  loves,  is  it 
not  the  Head  which  rules?  Moreover,  is  not  the 
Precious  Blood  in  a  special  way  the  minister  of  hia 
royalty  and  of  his  headship?  It  then  must  shed 
its  Blood,  and  shed  it  in  a  mystery  apart. 

Sweet  Blood  of  Jesus  !  longing  to  be  shed  and 
loving  to  be  shed,  impatient  and  yet  so  patient  too, 
prodigal  yet  counting  itself  out  drop  by  drop  with 
a  kind  of  avaricious  pleasure,  thou,  like  all  other 
loves,  wert  driven  to  be  inconsistent  in  order  to 
preserve  consistency!  But  a  while  ago  it  was 
hurrying  on  and  would  brook  no  delay.  It  was 
anticipating  time,  and  precipitating  mysteries. 
Now  it  is  all  for  delay.  Now,  in  the  Fifth  Blood- 
shedding,  it  enters  upon  a  mystery  of  slowness. 
But  there  are  still  the  same  instincts,  still  the  samo 
ends.  It  contrives  to  be  prodigal  by  being  tardy. 
This  Bloodshedding  is  the  Way  of  the  Cro>s,  that 
singular  mystery  of  the  Passion  in  which  the 
Hearts  of  Mother  and  Son,  hitherto  to  outward 
eye  divided,  meet  in  one  current,  and  flow  to- 
gether till  the  end.  The  two  victims  of  tho 
Scourging,  the  Son's  Body  and  the  Mother's  Soul, 
come  forth  into  the  streets.  The  King  and  tho 
queen  both  wear  their  Crowns  of  Thorns,  the 
King  wears  his  upon  his  Head,  while  the  queen 
wears  hers  upon  her  heart ;  for  the  queendoin  of 
Mary  is  in  her  heart.     We  spoke,  in  the  last  chap- 


THE    PRODIGALITY    OF   TIIK    PULCIOUS    BLOOD.    27? 

tor,  of  the  procession  of  the  Precious  Blood,  out 
of  an  unbeginniug  eternity,  over  long  epochs  and 
ages,  until  it  re-enters  the  portals  of  its  second 
eternity.  This  Fifth  Bloodshedding  is  a  veritable 
procession  of  the  Precious  Blood.  Slowly  winding 
and  unwinding  itself  out  of  the  streets  of  Salem 
up  the  ascent  of  Calvary,  it  had  not  far  to  go;  but 
it  was  long  in  slowness,  long  in  suffering,  long  in 
the  manifold  mysteries  which  were  densely  com- 
pressed within  it.  Every  wound  was  bleeding. 
The  drops  from  the  Crown  trickled  slowly  down, 
or  gathered  and  curdled  upon  the  Face  of  Jesus. 
The  hundred  fontinels  of  the  Scourffina:  oozed  out 
into  his  garments,  as  the  wet  rocks  on  the  moun- 
tains ooze  through  their  robes  of  moss.  The 
wounds  of  the  night's  arrest,  and  of  the  indignities 
before  the  High-Priests,  and  in  the  yard  of  Herod, 
flow  silently  with  Blood.  The  weight  of  the  Cross 
opens  the  wounds  wider  still,  and  increases  the 
Bloodshedding.  It  also  disturbs  the  Crown,  and 
keeps  it  freshly  bleeding;  while  it  makes  another 
wound  of  its  own  upon  the  shoulder,  and  is  the 
cause  of  new  wounds  in  the  knees  through  the 
cruel  falls  which  it  occasions.  The  sight  of  Mary's 
face  quickens  the  beating  of  his  Heart,  and  makes 
the  Blood  flow  more  freely.  He  leaves  his  foot- 
prints in  the  way;  and  they  are  of  Blood.  Ho 
imprints  the  likeness  of  his  features  on  the  napkin 
of  Veronica;  and  the  impression  is  in  Blood. 
They  that  brush  against  him  are  stained  with 
Blood.  They  that  walk  after  him  dye  their  sandals 
in  his  Blood.  His  march  to  Calvary  is  a  perfect 
triumph  of  the  Precious  Blood.  It  covers  every 
thing.     It  clings  to  the  meanest  objects      It  seenu 

24 


278    THE    PRODIGALITY   OF   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

to  multiply  itself.  Its  old  fountains  in  Mary's 
heart  break  up  in  sympathy  with  it;  and  she 
sheds  tears  of  blood.  The  Way  of  the  Cross  is  a 
mystery  of  many  objects,  of  constant  movement, 
a  transition  from  one  mystery  to  another.  What 
is  its  unity  ?  It  is  in  its  prodigality,  in  its  endless, 
manifold  Bloodshedding.  It  seems  a  time,  an  in- 
terval, a  journey,  contrived  for  the  very  purpose 
of  letting  the  Blood  flow,  and  flow  in  the  most  in- 
discriminate way,  and  in  the  most  promiscuous 
places.  For  the  most  part  it  flowed  from  old 
•wounds.  It  was  the  going  on  of  the  Scourging 
and  the  Crowning.  It  was  as  if  when  those 
mysteries  ceased  the  Blood  loved  still  to  flow,  and 
therefore  took  a  mystery  to  itself,  which  was  to 
be  engrossed  simply  with  its  flowing. 

But  there  are  also  other  peculiarities  in  this 
Fifth  Bloodshedding  which  should  not  be  over- 
looked.  It  was  a  mystery  of  unions,  of  meetings, 
of  harmonies.  "We  have  already  seen  that  it  was 
the  mystery  of  the  Passion  in  which  the  Mother 
and  Son  came  together  again.  h\  the  Agony,  and 
the  Scourging,  and  the  Crowning,  they  had  been 
visibly  separate,  though  closely  and  miraculously 
united  in  a  mystical  way.  She  had  seen  in  spirit, 
and  suffered  in  soul,  all  that  he  had  endured.  Her 
body  also  had  mysteriously  sympathized  with 
each  changing  state  of  his.  But  now  they  como 
visibly  together  again,  and  arc  not  disunited  until 
the  tomb  is  closed.  Then  also  the  Cross  and  the 
Precious  Blood  are  now  for  the  first  time  united. 
Hitherto  the  saving  Blood  has  flowed  apart  from 
the  saving  Cross.  It  is  the  union  of  the  two  in 
which    the   secret  virtue  of   redeeming  grace   re- 


THE    PRODiU.AI.ITY    OF   THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.  279 

sides.  Xow  the  weight  of  the  Cross,  as  we  have 
seen,  opens  old  wounds  and  causes  new  ones.  The 
Blood  and  the  Cross  are  together  now.  This  is 
the  Betrothing;  and  the  -Marriage  will  be  on  Cal- 
vary. Here  is  the  actual  prelude  of  redemption. 
Moreover,  the  Way  of  the  Cross  is  a  great  mystery 
of  prophecy  and  figure.  It  is  a  prophecy  of  the 
history  of  the  Church;  it  is  a  prefiguring  of  the 
fortunes  of  the  Holy  See;  it  is  a  type  of  our  Lord's 
owe  life  in  the  Church  through  all  the  ages  of 
unjudged  time, — a  Blood-dropping  life,  wearily  up 
to  the  Doom.  This  is  the  meaning  of  its  indis- 
criminate  profusion.  Good  and  evil  alike  are 
stained  with  it.  It  flows  to  save  souls;  but  it  will 
flow  over  souls  who  will  not  let  it  save  them.  It 
has  but  one  law  :  it  must  flow.  Anywhere,  every- 
where, always,  it  must  fiow.  It  is  the  one  mission 
of  the  Precious  Blood, — to  be  shed.  Then  see  how 
the  Way  of  the  Cross  ends!  It  finishes  in  another 
shame,  another  stripping,  another  tearing  open  of 
the  wounds  of  the  Scourging.  It  looks  as  if,  to 
the  Precious  Blood,  the  Scourging  were  its  mystery 
of  predilection.  It  returns  to  it  again  now,  and, 
as  nearly  as  possible,  repeats  it  over  again.  The 
Bloodshedding  of  the  Scourging  was  the  most, 
exuberant,  the  most  vehement,  the  most  penal,  the 
most  universal.  Thus  it  coincides  most  with  the 
genius  of  its  love.  Hence  it  will  have  it  reiterated, 
so  far  at  least  as  Bloodshedding  is  concerned,  at 
the  foot  of  the  Cross.  Now  that  it  is  sroinsr  to  be<dn 
the  strictly  needful  work  of  our  redemption,  it 
seems  to  hanker  after  the  freedom  of  its  unneces- 
sary sheddings.  There  is  a  great  deal  to  think  of 
here.     In  this  Fifth  Bloodsheddini;  the  Precious 


280  TIIE   PRODIGALITY    OF   THE   PRECIOUS   ELCOD. 

Blood  begins  to  bo  unlike  itself,  in  order  that  :\ 
may  be  more  like  itself  than  ever.  A  while  ago 
it  "was  impatiently  looking  onward;  now  it  is  look- 
ing half  regretfully  backward;  yet  it  is  the  same 
spirit  which  rules  it  in  both  these  dispositions, — 
its  love  of  being  shed. 

Men  can  lie  for  hours,  and  look  upon  a  running 
stream.  It  seems  to  afford  them  at  once  occupation 
and  repose.  Its  uninterrupted  sameness  fills  them 
with  tranquillity,  while  its  unintermitting  lapse 
gratifies  their  sense  of  life.  They  feel  that  they 
are  thinking;  yet  they  are  hardly  conscious  of 
their  thoughts.  Their  eye  is  fixed  with  a  sort  of 
fascination  on  the  noiseless  gliding  Avatcrs,  and 
they  are  soothed,  rested,  and  engaged.  This  is  a 
faint  picture  of  what  often  happens  to  us  in  our 
prayers,  especially  with  regard  to  certain  mys- 
teries, such  as  the  Crucifixion,  which  is  the  Sixth 
Bloodshedding.  It  is  so  familiar  to  us  that,  like 
the  river,  we  understand  it  all  at  sight.  We  cannot 
reason  about  it.  It  is  too  much  part  of  our  daily 
lives  for  that.  We  do  not  need  to  elicit  the  right 
affections;  for  they  come  unbidden,  and  flow  in  an 
order  of  their  own.  The  significance  of  the  mys- 
tery is  at  once  too  deep  and  too  plain  for  words. 
It  is  so  vast  an  object  of  faith,  that  simply  to  gaze 
upon  it  seems  to  be  the  broadest  study  of  it.  More- 
over, like  all  large  objects,  it  is  one  of  those  mys- 
teries which  are  best  seen  at  sonic  distance.  We 
see  the  whole  of  it  then.  We  comprehend  its  size, 
its  shape,  its  fashion,  and  the  disposition  of  the 
groups  round  about  it.  Who  does  not  know  the 
strange,  vivid,  palpable  peace  which  distance  gives 
to  sunlit  vistas  in  a  forest?     There  is  something 


THE  PRODIGALITY  OF  THE  PRECIOUS  BLOOD.  2^1 

of  this  kind  about  meditation  on  the  Crucifixion. 
How  almost  visionary  looks  the  bone-strewn  sward 
and  the  tufted  grass  of  that  green  hill-top,  with  its 
crosses  standing  against  the  dark  sky,  and  a  kind 
of  wan  sunshine  creeping  up  the  mound,  as  if  it 
came  rather  frcra  the  white  root's  of  the  city  than 
from  the  sun  in  heaven!  The  Precious  Blood  has 
Deen  out  in  the  vast  calms  and  ocean-solitudes  of 
the  mind  of  God.  It  has  voyaged  through  the 
beautiful  tranquillities  of  the  creations  of  spirit, 
matter,  and  men.  Its  lanterns  have  gleamed  like 
red  beacons  in  the  unspeakable  tempests  of  the 
divine  anger,  in  falls  of  angels  and  of  men,  in 
floods  and  fires,  in  judgments  and  captivities,  in 
discordant  panics  of  Babel  and  bituminous  up- 
heavings  of  Gomorrah.  It  has  kept  its  course  over 
thousands  of  years  of  the  uneasy  currents  of  human 
history;  and  lo!  that  hill-top  was  all  the  while  its 
haven!  The  Cross  was  its  predestinated  anchor, 
bedding  it  to  earth.  How  marvellous  a  harbor! 
How  like  one  of  those  plans  of  God,  which  are  so 
little  like  any  plan  of  ours! 

The  Precious  Blood  has  found  at  last  a  home, 
which  is  seemingly  dearer  to  it  than  the  Sacred 
Heart.  It  is  the  wood  of  the  Cross.  It  has  been 
so  impetuous,  that  it  has  shed  most  of  itself  before 
it  reached  the  Cross.  It  flows  very  slowly  now. 
Those  wounds  in  the  Hands  and  Feet  arc  too 
parsimonious;  and,  besides  that,  they  are  almost 
obstructed  by  the  nails  themselves.  But  the  dis- 
comfort of  the  Cross  makes  the  Sacred  Body  hang 
downward  and  outward,  and  so  reopens  the  almost 
exhausted  wounds  of  the  previous  Bloodsheddings. 
The  Blood  flows  very  slowly.     In  some  places  it 

24* 


e 


282  THE    PRODIGALITY    OF   THE   TRKCIOUS   BLOOD. 

Bt ill  trickles  over  the  pale  limbs.  In  others  it  only 
blackens  round  the  wounds.  Here  we  may  see 
just  a  visible  oozing,  while  there  it  barely  keeps 
itself  red  and  blood-like.  It  flows  very  slowly,  as 
if  it  would  prolong  its  delight  in  flowing.  It  look 
as  if  it  were  conscious  of  the  grandeur  of  its  work. 
This  is  redemption;  this  is  the  world-saving  flow; 
this  is  the  crown  of  all  its  flowing*;  this  is  the 
enduring  and  omnipotent  shedding  of  itself,  the 
end  of  the  battle  it  has  won  for  God,  the  final  and 
total  accomplishment  of  that  array  of  eternal 
decrees  which  all  along  have  clothed  it  like  royal 
robes.  How  slowly  it  flows,  with  a  fascinating 
slowness,  and  so  silently  !  Yet  the  scarcely-moving 
streams  blend  with  each  other  in  many  places,  and 
steal  down  upon  the  Feet.  The  Cross  is  wetted  by 
it,  and  the  wood  is  darkened.  Mary's  hands  are 
red.  The  dear  Magdalen  has  an  unconscious  con- 
sciousness  that  the  Blood  of  her  Love  is  upon  her 
hair;  and  the  innermost  wells  of  the  Sacred  Heart 
drop  and  drop  as  if  with  pulses  upon  the  disciple, 
who  had  pillowed  himself  uj)on  that  Heart  the 
night  before.  Here  and  there  a  blade  of  grass  is 
ruddy.  There  are  spots  on  the  skulls  of  the  dead; 
for  the  dead  also  have  their  interest  in  the  Pre- 
cious Blood.  The  torturers  and  soldiers  have  gone 
down  the  hill  with  their  garments  and  their  accou- 
trements discolored;  for  the  Precious  Blood  shrinks 
not  from  the  vilest  resting-places.  How  slowly  it 
flows,  as  if  the  very  grandeur  of  redemption  made 
it  cautious,  or  caused  some  difficulty !  The  slow- 
ness fascinates  us  more  and  more.  But  it  is  a 
relief  to  have  the  silence  broken.  There  is  no  look 
of  life  but  in  the  Blood.     Nothing  is  moving  but 


THE   PRODIGALITY    OF    THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.  283 

the  Blood.  Blood  is  life.  It  was  within  him.  Now 
it  is  almost  all  outside  him.  Those  seven  words 
are  the  voices  of  his  Blood.  With  what  a  clear 
ringing  sweetness  the}-  come  forth,  and  the  dark- 
ness round  the  mount  murmurs  with  them  as  if  it 
were  tingling  with  delight!  How  beautiful  are  his 
thoughts  upon  the  Cross,  beautiful  like  the  beauty 
of  God!  How  beautiful  are  the  seven  words,  with 
their  revelations  of  the  beauty  of  God !  Each  word 
is  a  ravishing  melod}',  in  which  the  Eternal  Word 
utters  himself  with  human  utterance.  Then  what 
a  perfect  abyss  of  rest  is  the  interval  between  each 
word,  silences  like  the  silences  which  the  angels 
keep  in  heaven!  The  soul  flutters  over  them  as 
over  hollowr  seas,  and  wellnigh  faints  with  love. 
But  in  the  silence  the  Blood  creeps  slowly,  out- 
ward, onward,  earthward.  Still  it  flows,  but  so 
industriously,  so  carefully,  so  methodically,  and 
yet  so  secretly,  so  noiselessly,  so  mysteriously.  It 
not  only  evades  the  ear  by  its  soundless  footfalls: 
but  now  it  almost  evades  the  eye.  Its  movement 
is  scarcely  visible  over  the  pale  Form,  like  the 
hands  of  a  timepiece.  It  seems  as  if  we  should 
never  see  that  dear  impetuous  Blood  precipitate 
again.  But  do  not  old  habits  come  back  at  last  in 
all  created  things,  and  youth  rise  again  to  imprint 
its  character  on  death  ?  The  Precious  Blood  has 
come  within  reach  of  its  end,  so  near  it  as  to  be 
impatient.  It  abandons  the  slowness  of  its  oozing 
it  will  be  precipitate  once  more;  and,  as  if  to  show 
that  all  shedding  of  itself,  all  surrendering  of  its 
precious  life,  was  voluntary,  it  bids  one  cell  of  the 
Heart  to  keep  what  it  contains,  dislodges  all  the 
rest  of  itself  with  a  loud  cry  of  miraculous  strength, 


284  THE   PRODIGALITY    OF    THE    1RECIOUS    BLOOD. 

and  leapa  forth  at  once  from  every  cavern  of  tl jo 
Body;  and  death  accomplishes  itself,  so  far  as  it 
was  a  natural  death,  by  the  shedding  of  tl  e  Blood. 
Is  there  to  be  more  Bloodshedding  still  t  Why, 
like  a  miser  on  his  death  bed,  had  the  Precious 
Blood  bidden  that  little  treasure?  Why  did  it  die, 
hoarding  itself?  It  was  that  the  Dead  Body  might 
shed  Blood.  It  was  to  deride  death,  to  survive 
death,  to  proclaim  love's  victory  over  death,  to 
show  that  its  own  propensity  to  shed  itself  had  not 
been  killed  by  death.  Hence  the  Seventh  Blood- 
shedding,  the  Piercing  of  the  Sacred  Heart.  "We 
often  know  men  best  by  what  they  do  when  they 
come  to  die.  So  it  is  with  the  Precious  Blood;  or 
rather  we  know  it  best  by  what  it  did  when  it  was 
dead.  It  was  so  liquefied  by  love  that  death  could 
not  curdle  it;  and  still  it  flowed,  as  if  flowing  were 
the  unchangeable  feature  of  its  character.  Death 
contents  men.  Hearts  ask  no  further  proof  of 
love.  Monarchs  consider  it  the  extremity  of 
loyalty.  Death  contents  God.  He  asks  no  more 
than  martyrdom;  and  he  cherishes  the  martyrdoms 
of  bis  Saints  as  the  inestimable  rubies  of  his  crea- 
tion. But  death  does  not  content  the  Precious 
Blood.  That  Sixth  Bloodshedding  was  necessary. 
In  many  ways  it  was  prodigal;  but  it  was  also 
necessary.  Redemption  was  a  needful  task,  a  task 
of  love,  but  still  a  task.  The  Precious  Blood,  as  I 
have  said,  hankered  after  the  days  of  its  unneces- 
sary sheddings,  the  days  when  its  love  wantoned 
in  the  pure  prodigality  of  its  royal  riches.  As  it 
shed  itself  before  the  work  of  redeeming  the  world, 
and  without  redeeming  it,  so  will  it  shed  itself 
again  now  that  the  work  of  redemption  is  accom 


TIIE   PRODIGALITY   OF   THE   TRECIOUS    BLOOD.  285 

plished.  Onec  more  it  will  reveal  its  character  in 
that  wastefulness  which  is  a  secret  of  divine 
economy.  O  Divine  Love!  there  is  no  more  in- 
veterate prodigal  than  thou! 

Moreover,  the  work  must  he  a  complete  work. 
All  the  Blood  must  he  separated  from  the  Body, 
ami  enjoy,  by  itself  and  in  its  separation,  its  union 
with  the  Person  of  the  Word.  Jt  must  he  a  total 
outpouring.  Divine  things  are  never  done  by 
halves;  and  mercies  above  all  insist  upon  com- 
pleteness. The  Heart  had  been  bidden  to  keep 
some  of  the  Blood  within  itself,  and  had  obeyed. 
It  was  undecided  whether  to  obey  reluctantly  or 
gladly.  On  the  one  hand  it  was  the  home  of  the 
Precious  Blood,  and  loved  it  with  the  fondest  love. 
To  be  untenanted  by  the  Precious  Blood  would  bo 
its  utterraosl  desolation.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  Heart  had  learned  the  instincts  of  its  inhabit- 
ant. Mothers  have  sent  forth  their  own  sons  to 
martyrdom  with  a  strange  covetous  love,  which 
had  more  of  heaven  in  it  than  of  earth.  So  would 
the  Sacred  Heart  fain  send  forth  that  lingering 
Blood  to  the  cruel  glory  of  its  shedding.  As  the 
Head  in  the  Crowning  had  been  jealous  of  the 
Bod}'  in  the  Scourging,  and  so  had  claimed  the  joy 
and  dignity  of  a  Bloodshedding  to  itself,  so  now 
the  Heart  was  jealous  of  the  Hands  and  Feet. 
It  envied  them  their  dripping  wells  of  life.  It 
grudged  them  the  beaut}*  of  their  eternal  stig- 
mata. Even  when  dead  the  Sacred  Heart  has 
irresistible  attractions  The  Soul  of  Jesus  beneath 
the  earth  felt  the  dear  uniliar  constraints  of  that 
grand  Heart;  and  so  the  Heart  wooed  the  lance 
of  the  centurion,   and   tha    hidden  Blood  sprang 


2SC  THE  PRODTOALITT  OF  THE  TRECIOUS  BLOOD. 

forth,  baptized  as  if  in  gratitude  its  heathen  libe- 
rator with  all  the  cleansing  graces  of  conversion, 
and  stole  gently  down  the  Side  of  Jesus,  kissing 
the  Flesh  which  it  had  animated  so  long. 

The  time  was  to  come  when  the  Body  was  to 
resume  the  Blood.  While  the  Sacred  Humanity 
had  been  as  it  were  unloosed  and  dispersed  for  the 
salvation  of  mankind,  the  Soul  busied  in  brighten- 
ing limbus,  the  Body  reposing  in  the  borrowed 
grave  of  the  Arimathean,  and  the  Blood  scattered 
with  a  sort  of  wasteful  ubiquity  all  over  the 
vicinage  of  Jerusalem,  the  Hypostatic  Union  of 
the  Divine  and  Human  Natures  had  never  been 
broken,  nor  even  impaired,  for  one  moment.  The 
separate  Soul  was  to  be  worshipped  with  divine 
worship  still.  The  Body  lay  peaceful!}'  among 
the  rocks,  ahwnys  and  absolutely  to  be  adored. 
The  Blood,  vagrant,  outlying,  parcelled,  indis- 
tinct, apparently  commingled  with  or  adhering  to 
other  substances,  was  also  in  each  drop,  in  each 
stain,  in  each  colored  impression,  in  each  volun- 
tary burial-place  of  its  own,  to  be  adored  with 
absolute  adoration,  in  virtue  of  its  unbroken  and 
unstrained  union  with  the  Godhead  in  the  Divine 
Person  of  the  Word.  But  these  worshipful  Three, 
the  Soul,  the  Body,  and  the  Blood,  were  to  come 
together  again  in  one  of  the  holiest  of  all  myste- 
ries, the  Resurrection.  It  was  to  be  the  grandeur 
of  this  mystery  that  it  should  as  it  were  open  to  us 
the  magnificent  abysses  of  the  Hypostatic  Union, 
and  show  us  the  glorious  strength  and  the  invin- 
cible bond  of  the  Incarnation,  while  it  should  also 
seem  to  be  like  a  new  Incarnation  in  itself.  But 
even  amidst  the  repairing  and  beautifying  force 


THE   PRODIGALITY  OF   TIIE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD     287 

of  the  Resurrection,  it  was  the  will  of  our  dearest 
Lord,  one  of  the  most  affectionate  and  character 
istic  of   all   his    wills,  that  some   marks  at   least 
of  the  old    Blaodsheddingg    should   be  retained 
Ten  thousand    times  a  day  should  his  whole  Blood 
be  poured   forth   from   heaven   into    the    Chalices 
of  the  Mass.     But  this  was  not  enough.      He  chins 
to  the  memory  of  those  old  Bloodsheddings.     He 
would  have  us  cling  to  the  memory  of  them  also. 
Jt  should  be  a  new  joy  to  the  angels  forever  to  see 
his  stigmata.      They   should  fill  the  souls  of  his 
elect  with  fresh  jubilee  for  all  eternity,  and   keep 
their  angelic  glory  tempered  with  the  human  ten- 
derness he  loves  so  dearly.     So  he  bade  the  glory 
of  the  Besurrection,  as   it   beautified   him    by  its 
immortalizing   fires,  not  only  to  respect  and   to 
retain  the  Five  Wounds  of  his  Sacred  Body,  but 
to  beautify  them   with    a  tenfold   beauty.     They 
were  to  be  roseate  luminous  suns  to  gladden  the 
palaces  of  the    Heavenly   Jerusalem,    which    the 
cruel  artificers  of  earth's  Jerusalem  bad  wrought 
upon   him  with   such  unintending  skill      He  keeps 
bis    stigmata    for  the   love  of  us.     He   keeps   bis 
stigmata    for   the    love    of    his    Precious    Blood. 
Many  single   mysteries  seem  to  tell  me  the  whole 
of  Jesus;  yet  I  find  I  cannot  spare  the  rest ;  for 
each   has   its  needful  revelation  of  his  sweetness. 
But,  if  I  were  compelled  to  choose  one  thing  only 
as    being   all   memorials  of   my   Saviour   in    one, 
I    would    choose    this    keeping   of    bis    stigmata. 
Jt  signifies  so  many  things,  and  it  signifies  them 
all   so   tenderly.     When   one  we  love  does  some- 
thing   more    than    usually   like    himself,  our    love 
leaps  up  with  joy;    and  when  he   does  it  unex 


288    THE   PRODIGALITY  OF    THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

pectedly,  our  hearts  burn  hotter  for  being  taken 
unawares.  Jesus  has  described  his  whole  Self,  as 
in  a  concise  Gospel,  in  this  one  act  of  keeping  the 
stigmata  of  his  blessed  Wounds.  I  seem  to  know 
him  better,  and  to  he  more  sure  1  know  hi  in 
rightly,  because  of  this  dear  pathos  which  abides 
unconsumed  amidst  the  burnings  of  that  Easter- 
glory,  this  lingering  of  the  Passion  among  the 
splendors  of  the  Resurrection. 

Let  us  now  turn  from  all  this  prodigality  of  the 
Precious  Blood,  which  was  unnecessary  for  us,  but 
necessarily  befitting  the  magnificence  of  God  ;  and 
let  us  turn  to  that  other  prodigality  which  is  so 
needful  for  us  that  we  could  not  afford  to  spare 
one  out  of  the  numberless  reiterations  of  its  exu- 
berance. What  an  incredible  history  it  is!  and 
yet  of  such  daily  occurrence,  of  such  common- 
place appearance,  of  such  matter-of-fact  practice, 
that  it  is  difficult  to  steady  our  minds  to  the  right 
understanding  of  it.  We  grow  confused  with 
numbers,  or  teased  with  the  childishness  of  ima- 
ginary calculations,  when  we  come  to  think  of  the 
sacramental  applications  of  the  Precious  Blood, 
which  the  souls  of  the  living  and  the  dead  are 
receiving  daily.  The  bounty  of  redeeming  grace, 
state  it  as  soberly  as  we  please,  has  all  the  un- 
natural unpersuasive  dazzle  of  an  Arabian  tale.  It 
is  all  gold  and  precious  stones  in  impossible  pro- 
fusion. It  seems  like  a  fairy-land  vision  rather 
than  a  human  reality.  The  ungenuineness  of  de- 
votional exaggerations  makes  us  angry  and  incre- 
dulous. But  divine  love  has  a  marvellous  sobriety; 
and  under  its  restraints  let  US  speak  of  this  matter 
more  coldly  than  we  feel. 


THE    PRODIGALITY  OF   1IIE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD.    289 

]f  wc  go  round  the  world,  there  can  hardly  ever 
be  an  hour  in  which  some  children  are  not  being 
baptized.     Baptism  is  the  application  of  the  Pre- 
cious  Blood    (o    their   souls.      JNo   act   in    life   can 
surpass  it  in  importance.     It  effects  a   most  com- 
plete spiritual  revolution  even  in  the  unconscious 
child.     It  effects  it  in  a  most  wonderful  way,  and 
by  means  of  mysterious  infusions,  and   in   conse- 
quence of  a  mysterious  Incarnation,  and  through 
the   virtue    of    mysterious    Bloodsheddings;    and 
these  things  take  their  effect  through  the  pouring 
of  water  simultaneously  with   the  pronunciation 
of  the  grand  Names  of  the  Divine  Persons,  accom- 
panied by  an  intention  on  the  part  of  the  person 
baptizing,  priest  or  lay,  man  or  woman,  or  even 
child.     Theology  composes   volumes   in    order  to 
elucidate    scientifically    the    group   of    Hysterics 
which  lie  compressed  in  the  Sacrament  of  Baptism. 
It  is  enough  for  us  to  remember  that  it  is  the  dif- 
ference between  heaven  and  hell.     Each  Baptism, 
is  a  greater,  a  diviner,  a  more  magnificent  work 
than  the  creation  of  the  material  world.     Yet,  in 
soher  truth,   the   waters  of  Baptism   are  flowing 
perenniall}',  so  that  if  they  could   run  together 
the}'    would     form    a    flowing    rivulet,     undried 
throughout  the  year.-    The  creation  of  a  new  star 
every  second  of  time  would  be  but  a  little  thing 
by  the  side  of  this.     Even  in   heathen   lands  this 
amazing  stream  is  flowing.     Amid  the  dense  popu- 
lations of    China   it   moves  visibly  to   God's   eye 
like  a  sweet    silver  brooklet.      It   has   made    the 
national  atrocity  of  child-murder  the  channel  in 
which  its'  beautifying  love  might  ingeniously  run. 
Children  in  fair  France,  and  in  green  England, 

T  25 


290    THE   TRUDIGALITY  OF  THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

and  in  German  towns,  and  over  the  Atlantic,  con. 
tribute  to  keep  up  this  strangely-characteristic 
work  of  Christianity.  European  and  American 
children  send  their  baptismal  missionaries  to  take 
up  the  exposed  and  dying  children  from  the  fields 
and  from  the  dung-heaps,  and  to  baptize  them,  in 
thank-offering  to  God  for  the  grace  of  Baptism 
to  which  they  themselves  have  reached.  Eu- 
ropean and  American  mothers  send  to  purchase 
of  Chinese  parents  the  children  they  would  slay, 
or  at  least  to  purchase  permission  to  baptize  the 
doomed  innocents,  in  thank-offering  for  their  own 
children  having  attained  to  the  grace  of  Baptism 
If  we  put  all  this  continuity  of  Baptism  into 
numbers,  and  remember  meanwhile  the  spiritual 
magnificence  of  Baptism,  we  shall  be  able  to  form 
some  idea  of  the  prodigality  of  the  Precious  Blood 
hidden  in  those  waters  of  salvation. 

What  is  Absolution  ?  It  is  the  authentic  drip- 
ping of  the  Precious  Blood  upon  the  head  of  the 
repentant  sinner.  It  is  God's  patience  grown  so 
patient  as  to  be  magnificent.  It  is,  almost  but 
not  quite,  the  limit  of  the  outstretching  of  the  eter- 
nal arms  of  mercy,  in  it  human  acts  reach  to 
one  of  their  highest  heights.  They  are  lifted  up 
to  merit  salvation  by  the  merits  of  the  Precious 
Blood.  Human  sorrow  is  consecrated  and  made 
divine  by  the  touch  and  the  anointing  of  the 
sorrow  of  Jesus;  and  that  unction  was  only  to 
reach  us  with  the  flowing  of  his  Blood  from  his 
gracious  Wounds.  Without  shedding  of  Blood 
there  was  to  be  no  remission.  Millions  of  souls 
are  at  large  in  heaven  this  clay,  who  without 
Absolution  would  have  been  in  hell.     Yet  it  were 


THE    PRODIGALITY    OF   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD.    29  > 

better  a  -whole  solar  sj-stcm  should  be  shattered 
to  pieces  than  a  single  soul  lost.  If  there  is 
something  very  divine  in  the  facility  of  Baptism, 
reminding  us  of  creation  when  the  word  was 
spoken  and  forthwith  the  work  was  done,  there  is 
also  something  very  divine  in  the  difficulty  and 
effort  of  Absolution,  reminding  us  of  redemption 
winch  was  only  accomplished  by  a  Passion  and 
with  Blood.  Hearts  have  to  be  softened,  habits 
weakened,  dispositions  changed,  occasions  de- 
serted, new  tastes  infused,  entanglements  untied. 
The  Precious  Blood  has  to  put  forth  more  of  its 
strength  here  than  in  Baptism;  because  it  has  to 
overcome  more  inveteracy  and  resistance.  It  has 
also  to  venture  its  sacred  riches  more  prodigally 
here  than  in  other  Sacraments.  In  all  Sacraments 
it  runs  two  gcnei*ous  risks,  the  risk  of  invalidity, 
and  the  risk  of  sacrilege.  Both  these  risks  are 
more  especially  run  in  the  Sacrament  of  Penance. 
Yet  what  numberless  confessions  arc  daily  heard  ! 
What  hundreds,  or  thousands,  of  Absolutions  are 
daily  given,  the  greater  portion  of  which  I  am 
undoubtingly  certain,  from  the  character  of  God 
and  the  experience  of  the  confessional,  are  valid  ! 
How  many  Absolutions  have  we  ourselves  received 
in  our  lives,  and  hope  still  to  receive !  Surely, 
if  we  could  see  as  God  sees,  and  as  perchance  the 
amrels  are  allowed  to  see,  we  should  behold  innu- 
merable  streams  of  Blood  intersecting  the  crowded 
souls  of  men,  as  a  vast  river-system  shows  like  a 
net-work  on  a  map  ;  and  this  would  be  a  vision 
of  the  prodigality  of  Absolution. 

How  beautiful  are  the  graces  of  the  Sacrament 
of  Marriage  !     Full  of  human  tenderness,  yet  so 


202    THE   PRODIGALITY    OF   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

softly  insinuating  the  sovereign  love  of  God;  teem- 
ing with  habitual  self-sacrifice,  yet  filling  the 
sacrifice  with  such  sweetness  that  it  becomes,  not 
painless  only,  hut  a  joy  ;  breeding  in  young  hearts 
such  a  gravity  of  new  heavenly  duties,  and  yet 
flinging  over  life  the  lustre  of  an  additional  light 
hardening-  the  changeful  heart  with  a  supernatural 
preparation  of  perseverance,  and  yet  softening 
every  harshness  and  making  every  sensitiveness 
more  exquisitely  keen;  fortifying  the  soul  with 
boldness  to  do  right,  at  the  very  moment  it  is 
gracing  it  with  all  the  bashful  timidities  of  love; 
elevating  affection  into  devotedness,  and  giving 
therewith  a  beautifulness  of  purity  which  is  akin 
to  the  white  innocence  of  virginity: — these  are 
the  graces  of  the  Sacrament  of  Marriage;  and 
they  are  all  creations  of  the  Precious  Blood.  They 
are  all  of  them  working  daily  in  millions  of  hearts, 
hearts  in  sorrow  and  hearts  in  joy;  and  their  life 
is  in  the  throbbing  and  pulsation  of  the  Precious 
.Blood.  This  time  it  is  not  a  stream  of  Blood  we 
see,  but  a  wide-stretching  inundation. 

Of  all  the  Sacraments,  Ordination  is  the  most 
like  marriage.  It  weds  hearts  to  Jesus.  It  makes 
those  hearts  his  homes.  The  priesthood  is  his 
domestic  life  in  the  Church.  It  is  replete  with 
images  of  Mary  and  of  Joseph.  It  repeats  Naza- 
reth. But  what  a  complication  of  graces  is  im- 
plied in  Ordination,  and  then  also  what  a  magnifi- 
cence of  powers  !  Moreover,  it  is  a  manifold  Sacra- 
ment. Its  unit}'  is  a  threefold  unity  in  Bishops, 
Priests,  and  Deacons,  a  shadow  of  unutterable 
divine  grandeurs.  Furthermore,  it  is  as  it  were 
the  sacred  vessel  in  which  the  other  six  Sacra  men  ta 


THE    PRODIGALITY    OF    THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD.    293 

are  kept,  and  out  of  which  they  radiate  their  glorj 
and  their  life.  This  grand  Sacrament  is  the  earthly 
heart  of  the  Precious  Blood.  It  is  to  it  on  earth 
what  the  Sacred  Heart  is  to  it  in  heaven.  It  gives 
the  movement  to  its  life.  It  takes  it  hack  and 
gives  it  forth.  It  regulates  its  energy,  and  makes 
its  heatings  equable  as  well  as  forcible.  It  concen- 
trate's the  Precious  Blood  in  itself,  and  then  vehe- 
mently diffuses  it  all  over  the  earth  through  every 
remotest  vent  of  missionary  fervor.  The  graces 
of  this  Sacrament  are  like  the  graces  of  angels; 
and  yet  they  are  of  all  graces  the  most  human; 
for  they  impart  the  likeness  of  the  Sacred  Hu- 
manity as  no  other  graces  can  impart  it.  Each 
grace  of  Ordination  is  a  characteristic  of  Jesus. 
Its  gift  is  to  make  the  clear  heart  of  the  priest  a 
mirror  into  which  the  Savior  is  for  ever  looking 
down,  and  his  Countenance  is  marvellously  glassed 
therein.  Yet,  for  all  this,  men  must  be  partially 
changed  into  angels  by  the  operation  of  these 
intensely  human  graces.  In  truth,  Ordination  is 
specially  a  Sacrament  of  the  Precious  Blood.  Jesus 
became  a  priest  by  the  shedding  of  his  Blood,  by 
the  offering  of  his  Bloody  Sacrifice.  His  Blood  is 
the  virtue  of  his  priesthood.  Yet  when  it  lay 
separate  from  the  Soul  and  from  the  Bod}',  it  was 
angels  who  kept  it,  and  not  men.  This  is  the 
figure  of  the  strange  mixture  of  the  human  and 
angelic  in  the  graces  of  the  priesthood.  But  how 
many  are  the  anointed  of  the  Lord,  how  multiplied 
are  their  works,  how  manifold  their  vocations; 
how  vast  their  missions,  how  continuous  their  re« 
eruits  !  All  this  implies  so  much  prodigality  of 
the  Precious  Blood. 

25* 


291    THE   PRODIGALITY    OF   THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

Jesus  once  looked  into  a  young  man's  face,  and 
loved  him.  He  has  perpetuated  this  incident  in 
his  Church.  It  is  perpetuated  in  the  Sacrament 
of  Confirmation.  When  Jesus  went,  and  the  Holy 
Ghost  came  to  take  his  place  and  to  administer 
the  Church,  he  also  was  forever  looking  into  the 
faces  of  the  young;  and  his  look  was  a  gift,  a 
magnificent  substantial  love,  an  imparting  of  that 
fortitude  which  youth  so  much  requires,  and  the 
want  of  which  made  the  young  man  of  the  Gospel 
turn  away  in  the  cowaixlice  of  an  earthly  sorrow. 
But  the  seven  gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost  were  only 
purchased  for  us  ly  the  Precious  Blood.  The  very 
title,  which  the  Gospel  gives  to  the  times  before 
the  sacrificial  shedding  of  our  Redeemer's  Blood, 
was  "the  times  when  the  Holy  Ghost  was  not  }-et 
given."  Xow  look  at  the  multitude  of  Christian 
youth.  If  there  is  much  to  sadden,  how  much 
also  is  there  to  cheer !  How  much  generous  piety 
do  Ave  behold,  how  many  early  breakings  with 
the  world,  how  many  works  of  mercy,  how 
man}7  edifying  confraternities,  how  many  levites 
in  the  seminaries,  how  many  beautiful  vocations 
in  the  cloisters!  What  is  all  this  but  Confirma- 
tion's gift  of  fortitude,  made  fertile  by  the  Pre- 
cious Blood? 

We  have  seen  that  the  Precious  Blood  shed 
itself  chiefly  round  about  the  death  of  Jesus  •  and 
that  his  Death  was  in  reality  a  death  by  bleeding. 
Hence  the  hour  of  death  is  the  chosen  hour  of  the 
Precious  Blood.  It  is  the  favorite  season  of  its 
ingenuities.  Thus  it  makes  a  Sacrament  for  itself 
at  that  precise  time,  the  Sacrament  of  Extreme 
Uuction,  the  last  of  its  anointings,  the  anointing 


THE   PRODIGALITY    OF    TIIE   TRICIOUS    BLOOD.    295 

reserved  for  the  supreme  contest  of  the  soul,  the 
last  of  its  Baeramental  visitations  to  the  elect. 
This  wonderful  Sacrament  shrouds  its  graces  in 
mystery,  a  mystery  congenial  to  the  darkness 
which  belongs  to  its  dread  hour.  But  the  very 
fact  of  its  being  a  Sacrament  at  all,  and  the  season 
of  its  administration,  sufficiently  testif}*  to  the 
grandeur  of  the  graces  which  it  must  convey. 
God  is  eminently  a  God  of  time  and  place,  as 
we  have  seen;  and  his  places  and  times  are  the 
measures  of  his  gifts.  Extreme  Unction,  like  the 
oil  of  the  Grecian  wrestlers,  anoints  us  for  our 
mortal  struggle.  Whatever  relics  of  sin  there 
may  be  in  us,  the  powers  of  darkness  will  fasten 
upon  them.  But  the  grace  of  this  Sacrament 
Marches  them  out  with  a  mysterious  penetration, 
and  puts  them  to  a  supernatural  death.  The  best 
name  for  its  grace  is  the  grace  of  health ;  and  so, 
if  God  does  not  will  that  it  should  impart  health  to 
our  bodies,  it  turns  its  exotic  medicinal  virtues  upon 
the  soul.  Other  Sacraments  liken  our  lives  to  the 
life  of  Jesus.  This  likens  our  deaths  to  the  death  of 
Jesus.  It  diffuses  itself  over  our  souls,  strewn  with 
the  work  of  a  whole  life,  and  gathers  up  the  frag- 
ments which  other  Sacraments  have  left  untouched. 
It  cleanses  them  with  a  last  cleansing.  It  arranges 
them  with  neatness  and  order  for  the  coming  of 
our  Lord.  It  puts  them  in  their  right  posture  and 
attitude  for  being  most  safely  judged.  3Iust  not 
its  graces  be  very  peculiar,  and  yet  also  veiy 
magnificent  ?  Throughout  the  world  there  is  a 
whole  population  dying  daily.  A  section  of  the 
world  is  always  on  its  death-bed  and  i  i  its  agony. 
How  prodigal  then  must  the  Precious  Blood  be  ol 


296  THE  PRODIGALITY  OF  THE  PRECIOUS  BLOOD. 

its  magnificent  peculiarities  in  this  pathetic  Sacra* 
ment ! 

But  what  shall  we  say  of  that  twofold  wonder, 
the  Sacrifice  of  the  Mass  and  the  Sacrament  of 
Communion?  There  the  Precious  Blood  puts  on 
the  vesture  of  omnipresence,  and  it  becomes  it  well. 
Multiplied  by  how  many  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
times  is  it  not  dwelling,  whole,  living,  and  glorified, 
in  the  Hosts  reserved  within  the  tabernacles  of  the 
world?  Into  how  many  thousand  human  hearts- 
does  it  not  descend  daily,  whole,  living,  and  glori- 
fied, in  the  glory  of  the  dread  reality  of  Commu- 
nion? Into  how  many  thousand  chalices  docs  it 
not  empty  itself  from  out  the  Sacred  Heart  in 
heaven  every  day?  The  very  whirling  of  tlio 
earth,  as  it  makes  day  and  night  by  turning  to  or 
from  the  sun,  ministers  to  the  longings  of  the  Pre- 
cious Blood.  It  is  bewildering  to  think  of  the 
countless  graces  of  expiation  which  flow  daily 
from  the  Sacrifice,  or  the  countless  graces  of  union 
which  flow  daily  from  the  Sacrament.  This  is  the 
great  laboratory  in  which  the  Precious  Blood  makes 
holiness.  In  the  heart  of  the  Andes,  vast,  inter- 
woven, and  mutually  enfolding  mountains  cover 
themselves  with  gigantic  forests.  The  condor,  as  he 
wheels  above,  looks  down  upon  an  ocean  of  impene- 
trable foliage,  without  a  rent,  or  break,  or  insight 
into  the  green  abyss.  So  does  the  Precious  Blood, 
in  Mass  and  Communion,  mantle  the  Avhole  Church 
with  tropical  exuberances  of  grace,  as  they  ap- 
pear, hiding  the  natural  features  of  the  ground 
with  the  ample  folds  of  their  verdant  overgrowth. 
The  tinklings  of  the  mass-bell,  like  new-creative 
words,  change    the    whole   aspect   of  tho    uncon- 


THE   PROMGAIATY   OP   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD.    207 

Bcious  world.    Unknown  and  unsuspected  temporal 
calamities  are  daily  driven  away,  like  clouds  be- 
fore the  wind,  by  the  oblations  of  the   Precious 
Blood.     Nay,  through  the  crust  of  the  earth  the 
superincumbent  weight  of  that   Blood  presses  its 
way,  and  reaches  to  the  sinless  caves  of  Purga- 
tory.    Consolations    of    all    shapes    and    patterns 
come  there,  and  are  the  cooling-  rains  of  the  Pre- 
rious  Blood.     Who  can  class  them?     They  are  like 
the   monotonous   diversities  of   crystals,   beautiful 
for    their    variety,    and    beautiful    also    for    their 
sameness.     The    angels,    who    had    the    Precious 
Blood   in  their  keeping   during  the  Triduo  of  the 
Passion,    have    also    the    administration    of    it    in 
Purgatory,  and  are  well  pleased  with  this  labor 
of  congenial  love.     But  the  arithmetic  of  all  this 
prodigality  of  the  Precious  Blood,  is  it  not  impos- 
sible to  the    imagination    and    distracting   to    the 
heart  ?     It  disquiets  our  love.     Let  us  leave  off  the 
calculation,  and  contemplate  in  quietude  the  ocean 
of  painstaking  graces,  of  vast  satisfactions,  and 
of  kingly  expiations,  into  which  the  daily  Masses 
of  the  Church   outpour    themselves,  lighting   the 
patient  darkness  under  ground,  flashing  up  to  the 
skies  as  so  much    additional  light   and   song,  and 
beautifying  the  poor  exiled  earth  in  the  eye  of  the 
all-holy  heavens. 

In  closest  propinquity  with  the  Sacraments  we 
should  make  mention  of  the  Holy  See,  wherein 
dwells  the  paternity  of  all  the  Sacraments,  and  in 
which  resides  with  incredible  plenitude  the  juris- 
diction of  the  Precious  Blood,  the  regalia  of  the 
kingdom  of  the  Sacred  Humanity  of  Jesus.  At  no 
point  of  history  can  we  look  at  the  Sovereign  Pou- 


298    THE   PRODIGALITY   OF    THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

tiff  without  seeing  as  it  were  btforc  us,  in  most 
vivid  type,  the  Fourth  Bloodshcdding,  the  Crown- 
ing of  Thorns.  The  pontifical  monarchs  of  the 
.Middle  Ages,  no  less  than  the  martyr-pontiffs  who 
haunted  the  Catacombs,  or  the  modern  popes  who 
toil,  like  patient  heroes,  through  the  pusillanimous 
hostilities  of  diplomacy,  equally  hear  upon  them 
this  peculiar  image  of  our  Lord.  They  adminis- 
trate his  Headship.  Thej'  arc  his  Head  made 
visible  to  us.  The  tiara  is  the  most  veritable 
crown  of  thorns,  and  the  pontificate  the  mos* 
literal  of  martyrdoms.  It  is  the  Head  ever  bleed 
ing,  bleeding  slowly.  There  is  the  old  suffering 
patience  in  its  majesty.  It  is  a  true  royalty;  but 
men  mock  it  because  its  kingly  mantle  is  soiled 
with  all  earth's  poverty.  It  is  a  hidden  kinglincss, 
like  the  kingship  of  the  guard-room  at  Jerusalem 
It  is  a  sort  of  sacrament  of  the  Sacraments,  the 
sacrament  of  the  royalty  of  the  Precious  Blood. 
The  papacy  is  the  Fourth  Bloodshcdding  continued 
till  the  Doom. 

This  is  one  department  of  the  prodigality  of  the 
Precious  Blood,  its  sacramental  prodigality.  But, 
besides  this,  there  is  a  whole  world  of  extra-sacra- 
mental prodigality.  At  least  we  may  for  distinc- 
tion's sake  call  it  so.  But  in  reality  all  holiness 
is  tied  to  the  Sacraments  by  innumerous,  indirect, 
and  hidden  fastenings.  Good  works  come  out  of 
the  Sacraments,  or  come  out  of  other  works  which 
have  done  so,  or  they  go  into  the  Sacraments,  or 
are  the  accidents  and  superfluities  of  Sacraments, 
or  minister  to  the  Sacraments,  or  are,  we  know 
not  why,  contemporaneous  with  them.  Even  tho 
grandeur  of  perfect  contrition  is  tied  to  tli  3  Sacra- 


THE   PRODIGALITY    OF   THE    TltECIOUS    BLOOD.    299 

meats  by  desire.  The  martyrdom  of  the  cate- 
chumen is  riveted  to  Baptism  by  secret  desire, 
desire  which  may  even  be  unconscious  as  well  as 
secret,  yet  must  infallibly  be  there.  The  whole 
system  of  redemption  is  interpenetrated  with 
Sacraments.  The  sacramental  tendency  in  it  is 
ineradicable.  It  coheres  by  Sacraments.  Sacra- 
ments are  the  tissue  of  its  life;  and  its  life  is  the 
Precious  Blood.  Therefore  when  we  come  to  con- 
sider the  daily  penances  and  supernatural  actions 
which  are  consecrated  by  the  Precious  Blood  in 
the  Church,  although  we  may  fairly  call  them 
extra-sacramental,  we  must  at  the  same  time  bear 
in  mind,  that  there  is  probably  not  one  which  has 
not  some  relation,  open  or  occult,  with  a  Sacrament, 
and  that  the  genius  of  them  all  is  an  affinity  to  the 
Sacraments  and  an  instinctive  sympathy  with 
them.  They  dart  into  the  Sacraments,  and  blend 
with  them,  and  lose  themselves  in  them,  with  a 
swiftness  and  a  volatility  which  remind  us  of  things 
in  chemistry. 

If  we  are  devout  to  the  Church,  if  we  have  keen 
sympathies  with  the  Holy  See,  and  if  we  are  in- 
terested in  missionary  enterprise,  we  can  rapidly 
make  for  ourselves  a  geographical  picture  of  the 
Church.  We  know  what  countries  belong  to  her, 
and  where  her  missions  are  growing,  and  where 
they  are  receding.  "We  can  pass  in  swift  thoughts 
from  one  pole  to  the  equator,  and  from  the  equator 
to  the  other  pole.  We  know  how  much  life  goes  on 
in  a  little  space, — especially  spiritual  life.  The 
religious  actions,  inward  and  outward,  of  one  rural 
parish  are  multitudinous  and  rapid,  a  dense  world 
of  thoughts,  motives,  words,  and   works,      llow 


300   TIIE    PRODIGALITY    OF   THE    TRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

innumerable  then  must  be  the  daily  supernatural 
actions  of  the  wide  Church  !  Yet  wherever  grace 
is,  there  is  the  Precious  Blood.  Whatever  may 
merit  can  only  merit  by  coming  in  spiritual  con- 
tact with  the  Precious  Blood.  In  all  this  seething 
mass  of  actions,  it  is  the  Precious  Blood  which  is 
causing;  all  the  movement  and  all  the  fermentation. 
"Wheresoever  nature  is  raised  above  itself  and 
lifted  into  the  supernatural,  there  we  discern  infal- 
libly the  agency  of  the  Precious  Blood.  But  what 
a  ubiquitous  life,  what  a  universal  energy,  what 
rapidity  and  what  persistence  of  operation  !  Then 
look  at  the  other  side  of  the  question.  Who  could 
number  the  sins  in  the  world  at  any  one  given 
moment?  Is  not  evil  always  like  the  sea  which  is 
with  difficulty  banked  out  from  low-lying  lands? 
It  is  bursting  the  banks,  tearing  away  the  gates, 
flooding  the  sluices  perpetually.  The  thought  of 
the  number  of  sins  at  any  given  time  is  at  once 
distracting  and  oppressive.  Yet  I  believe  that 
always,  in  some  way  or  other,  proximately  or 
remotely,  the  Precious  Blood  is  trying  to  hinder 
each  one  of  these  sins.  The  number  of  sins  maices 
us  wonder  bow  the  Precious  Blood  can  divide 
itself  into  such  numberless  activities,  while  the 
gravity  of  the  sins  shows  us  how  prodigal  it  is, 
not  only  of  its  presence,  but  of  its  strength.  The 
life  of  the  Precious  Blood  in  the  religious  houses 
of  the  Church  is  amazing.  The  crowds  of  daily 
heroic  actions  which  are  sustained  by  it,  each  of 
which  seems  to  draw  it  up  from  its  choicest  depths, 
ind  then  the  plentiful  harvest  of  more  ordinary 
jfierits,  the  quantity  of  sanctified  suffering,  the 
Amount  of  supernatural  obedience, — how  immense 


THE   PRODIGALITY    OF   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD.    301 

is  fill  this!  and  yet  it  is  but  one  department  of  the. 
sleepless  business  of  the  Precious  Blood  !  Another 
and  a  vaster  -world  is  to  be  found  in  its  favorite 
sphere  of  death-beds.  All  that  activity,  all  those 
inventions,  all  that  concentration  of  converting 
love,  all  that  precipitate  accumulation  of  sanctify- 
ing grace,  all  that  lightning-like  formation  of 
habits  which  are  to  be  eternal,  all  those  strange 
heroisms  of  death,  those  resurrections  of  old 
selves,  those  creations  of  new  selves,  those  almost 
overwhelming  embraces  of  nature  by  grace,  must 
all  go  to  the  account  and  enter  into  the  calcula- 
tion. Nay,  look  at  the  multitudes  who  wander 
outside  the  Church;  even  those  desolate  tracts  of 
the  world,  those  unwatered  regions,  are  yet  beauti- 
fied in  some  degree  by  the  overflowings  of  the 
Church,  the  prodigal  outgoings  of  the  Precious 
Blood. 

All  this  prodigality  of  the  Precious  Blood, 
whether  in  the  Sacraments  or  alongside  of  them,  I 
call  necessary,  as  distinguished  from  the  prodi- 
gality of  the  Thirty-Three  Years,  which  was  not 
necessary  to  us,  but  belongs  to  the  magnificence 
of  God's  love.  The  other  prodigality  is  necessary 
to  us,  because  without  it  we  should  not  bo  saved. 
Oar  corruption  is  so  active,  our  weakness  is  so 
lamentable,  our  vileness  is  so  great,  our  dangers 
are  so  terrible,  our  carelessness  is  so  incredible,  that 
we  could  not  for  the  most  part  work  out  our  salva- 
tion with  any  access  to  the  Precious  Blood  less 
free,  less  easy,  less  common,  less  abundant,  than 
that  which  God's  magnificence  has  opened  to  us. 
Still,  if  we  consider  the  grandeur  of  the  Sacraments 
in  themselves,  or  the  immense  capabilities  of  grace, 

26 


302    THE   I'ltODIGALITY    OF   THE    PRECIOUS    ELOOU. 

or  the  intrinsic  glory  of  the  mysteries  so  reiterated; 

and  if  we  look  at  all  these  things  from  a  theo- 
logical rather  than  a  practical  point  of  view,  we 
must  acknowledge  that  the}'  betoken  an  amazing 
prodigality  on  the  part  of  God,  even  though  our 
necessities  bo  so  hungry  that  they  consume  it  all. 
We  must  be  continually  replenishing  the  shallow- 
ness of  our  finite  lives,  and  we  can  only  replenish 
them  out  of  the  Divine  infinity.  We  cannot  satisfy 
our  thirst  at  any  fountain  less  magnificent.  It  is 
another  joy  which  God's  love  added  to  his  beati- 
tude, that  we  should  drink  of  those  wells  for  ever- 
more, and  drink  of  them  with  liberty  and  glad- 
ness. 

Now  let  us  come  out  under  the  starry  sky,  and 
think  of  this  prodigality  of  the  precious  Blood. 
The  great  tent  of  heaven  above  us  seems  to  waver 
and  the  stars  to  swing  like  lamps  from  its  purple 
roof.  But  the  desert  could  not  be  more  silent  than 
this  outspread  scene.  If  the  uninstructed  man 
looks  at  the  starry  skies,  he  either  feels  no  mystery 
in  them,  or  feels  that  it  is  a  mystery  which  he 
cannot  understand.  Some  feeling,  which  if  it  is 
not  poetry  is  akin  to  poctiy,  and  which  if  it  is 
not  religion  is  akin  to  religion,  would  surely  be 
awakened  within  him.  But  all  would  be  vague, 
restless,  and  uncertain,  and  therefore  would  soon 
weary  him,  and  so  be  transient,  and  speedily  for- 
gotten. The  astronomer  would  look  on  the  love- 
liness of  this  spangled  night  with  far  other  eyes. 
His  knowledge  would  disentangle  the  constella- 
tions  for  his  eyes.  The  orbs  would  be  individuals 
to  him,  with  names,  known  points,  and  some  pecu- 
liarities.     The    purple    concave   would    at    onco 


THE    PRODIGALITY    OF    THE    TRECIOUS    BLOOD.    303 

inscribe  itself  for  him  with  glittering  lines  and 
orbits,  better  than  the  grooved  spheres  of  Ptolemy. 
It  would  be  a  joy  to  him  to  inform  so  much  scem- 
inir  confusion  with  so  much  real  order,  lie  might 
think  little  of  the  beauty  of  night,  and  still  less 
of  the  beauty  of  the  God  of  night.  But  the  scene 
would  speak  in  grand  sonorous  language  to  his 
understanding.  Then  let  us  bring  a  poet  to  the 
place.  He  might  know  as  little  of  the  mechanism 
of  the  heavens  as  the  uninstructed  man.  But  he 
would  understand  the  scene  by  feeling  it.  He 
would  feel  that  the  starry  heavens  outside  corre- 
sponded marvellously  with  the  starry  heavens 
within  him.  Behold  him.  His  soul  is  taken 
captive  with  the  beauty  of  night.  He  looks.  He 
grows  calm  with  a  sweet  calmness,  dialings 
cease.  Breathings  as  of  far-off  music  rise  up 
from  some  deep  sanctuary  within  his  soul.  The 
beauty  melts  him  ;  the  glory  masters  him  ;  and  he 
sings  the  infinity  of  God.  Both  the  astronomer 
and  the  poet  have  their  truth.  But  the  poet's 
truth  is  a  truer  truth  than  that  of  the  astronomer. 
So  it  is  in  looking  at  the  world  redeemed  The 
uninstructed  man  sees  nothing  in  it  but  puzzle  and 
contradiction.  His  faith  is  vague;  and  where 
faith  is  not  clear  there  is  seldom  earnestness. 
There  is  truly  a  look  of  God  about  the  world,  and 
a  wandering  fragrance  of  Jesus.  But  it  breeds 
liltle  more  in  him  than  a  kind  of  incredulous 
superstition.  To  the  instructed  believer,  who  is 
without  the  poetry  of  religion,  whose  head  errs 
because  his  heart  does  not  help  it,  whose  thoughts 
go  wrong  because  they  are  speculations  instead  of 
prayers, — to  him  the  aspect  of  redemption  ia  what 


304   THE    PRODIGALITY    OF   THE    TRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

the  starry  skies  arc  to  the  astronomer.  lie 
admires;  lie  is  amazed;  he  praises.  Yet  adoration 
is  so  little  to  his  taste,  and  worship  so  uncongenial 
to  his  disposition,  that  the  demand  for  it  at  once 
awakens  a  kind  of  skepticism  even  in  his  faith  Ho 
doubts  whether  so  much  be  done,  because  he  sees 
so  little  come  of  it.  He  judges  by  what  he  sees 
with  the  eye.  lie  does  not  know  how  to  divine 
with  his  heart.  He  does  not  perceive  that  the 
world  he  sees  is  nearly  as  far  beyond  his  under- 
standing as  the  God  who  is  invisible.  Sight  does 
not  help  us  to  understand  men.  Their  actions  are 
not  their  hearts.  Still  less  does  it  help  us  to  un- 
derstand grace,  which,  when  it  supernaturalizes 
nature,  lies  undermost,  not  uppermost.  To  under- 
stand God  and  God's  world,  we  must  look  at  him 
and  it  from  the  Precious  Blood  point  of  view. 
The  saints  of  the  Church  are  the  poets  of  redemp- 
tion. It  is  from  this  point  of  view  that  they  always 
see  the  world.  It  was  thus  that  Mary  saw  the 
world  at  all  times,  a  vision  most  awful,  j'et  most 
touching  and  most  dear.  It  is  the  way  in  which 
God  sees  at  this  instant.  All  things  to  him,  good 
or  evil,  are  tinged  with  the  Precious  Blood.  He 
beholds  them  all  in  his  own  repetition  of  Josue's 
miracle,  in  that  unsinking  crimson  sunset  of  the 
Precious  Blood,  which  ho  has  bidden  to  hang  in  all 
'ts  beauty  on  the  horizon  of  creation  forever. 


TBK    DKVOTION  TO    THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.       H05 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE    DEVOTION    TO    THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

Most  men  live  in  an  imaginary  world ;  and  yet 
their  imaginary  world  is  a  real  one.  They  make 
a  beauty  for  themselves,  and  throw  their  heart 
into  it.  Some  men  live  among  the  stars,  either  as 
observers  or  as  astronomers.  It  becomes  the  pas- 
sion of  their  lives  to  do  so.  The  movements  of 
the  heavenly  bodies  are  to  them  as  the  activities 
of  practical  life.  To  watch,  to  discover,  to  verify, 
up  in  the  heavens,  is  their  vocation.  It  is  the  way 
in  which  they  will  enjoy  themselves,  and  the  way 
also  in  which  they  will  benefit  their  kind.  Others 
spend  their  lives  with  equal  devotion  among  the 
strata  of  the  earth  and  the  long  interesting  epochs 
of  geology.  Others  give  themselves  up  to  dwell 
with  patient  vigilance  among  the  secret  labora- 
tories of  matter,  where  its  separations,  combina- 
tions, and  transmutations  are  discovered,  and 
whose  mysteries  are  yearly  spreading  themselves 
more  and  more  over  daily  life  in  the  shape  of  most 
important  practical  utilities.  Another  becomes 
the  companion  of  animals,  and  reigns  like  a 
natural  king,  as  he  is,  among  his  beasts  and  birds 
and  fishes  and  reptiles.  Another  is  the  doctor 
and  prophet  of  plants,  and  another  of  minerals. 
Men  can  make  fascinating  scientific  worlds  for 
themselves  out  of  the  flooring  of  the  sea,  out  of 

U  26* 


ROO   THE  DEVOTION  TO  THE  PRECIOUS  BLOOO. 

the  stormy  circles  of  the  air,  out  of  the  rushing 
thread-like  arteries  of  electric  force,  and  out  of 
many  other  subprcfectures  of  nature.  These 
worlds  are  imaginary,  and  yet  real :  real  because 
of  the  substantial  truth  and  practical  uiility 
of  them;  imaginary  because  of  the  exclusive 
enthusiasm  with  which  they  are  dwelt  upon, 
and  the  breadth  of  responsible  life  which  is 
consumed  in  them.  The  world  is  not  only  or 
altogether  a  celestial  globe,  or  a  geological  map, 
or  an  arithmetic  of  chemistry,  or  a  hierarchy 
of  animal  life. 

Neither  again,  indeed  much  less,  is  the  length 
and  breadth  of  human  life  contained  in  the  straits 
of  politics,  the  shallows  of  diplomacy,  the  quaking 
mosses  of  balances  of  power,  or  the  frail  clock- 
work of  constitutions.  I  can  understand  better 
than  most  of  these  idolatries  a  passionate  occupa- 
tion of  the  mind  with  statistics,  out  of  which  time 
will  evolve  revelations  of  the  nature  of  man  and 
of  the  laws  and  storms  and  methodical  fluctua- 
tions of  human  actions,  which  cannot  fail  to 
illuminate  in  some  wonderful  way  and  with  un- 
expected light  the  adorable  character  of  God. 
But  statistics  are  not  commensurable  with  life. 
Men  may  easily  live  in  an  epic  of  metaphysics  and 
psychology ;  and  neglect  all  else;  but  they  can 
establish  no  right  to  such  a  concentration  of  them- 
selves,  any  more  than  the  physiologist  with  the 
patient  slowness  of  his  singularly  attractive  pur- 
suit. Life  is  broader  than  any  science  of  life;  for 
it  is  a  law,  a  duty,  a  responsibility,  an  affection, 
a  religion.  Yet  all  natures  have  their  poetries. 
Most  men   must  have  their  ideal,  or  one  of  theso 


I 


THE    DEVOTION    TO    THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.      307 

imaginary  real  worlds  which  subserve  all  tho 
better  purposes  of  an  ideal.  These  are  the  devo- 
tions of  the  intellect,  which  absorb  within  them- 
selves the  interests  of  the  heart.  We  are  placed 
in  creation  as  kings;  and,  often  quite  uncon- 
sciously, our  kingly  instincts  work  in  our  souls; 
and  we  take  creation  to  pieces,  and  choose  tho 
provinces  over  which  we  intend  to  rule.  But  we 
are  quarrelsome  kings.  We  do  not  like  neigh- 
boring- rulers.  The  proverbial  jealousies  of  scien- 
tific men  are  like  the  peevish  diplomacies  of  fretful 
politicians. 

Now,  what  astronomy,  and  geolog}T,  and  che- 
mistry, and  other  cognate  sciences,  and  what  poli- 
tics, statistics,  metaphysics,  and  their  congenial 
sciences,  are  to  many  men,  and  to  most  men,  tho 
Church  is  to  us.  It  is  our  devotion,  our  pursuit, 
our  passion.  It  is  our  favorite  science,  our  chosen 
study,  our  life's  enthusiasm.  As  a  matter  of  taste 
no  one  can  blame  us;  for  tastes  arc  facts,  and 
facts  which  are  mostly  inculpable,  and  hardly 
admit  of  criticism.  One  man  has  as  much  right 
to  be  immensely  interested  m  a  Sacrament,  as 
another  in  a  curious  dip  of  strata,  or  the  varying 
magnitude  of  a  perplexing  star,  or  in  some  new 
property  of  a  metalloid,  or  in  the  dethroning  of 
an  old  element  by  dividing  it.  If  one  man  may 
without  blame  make  all  other  sciences,  literatures, 
and  pursuits,  subordinate  to  his  one  science, 
literature,  and  pursuit,  another  may  make  all 
sciences,  literatures,  and  pursuits,  subordinate  to 
his  exclusive  devotion  to  the  Church.  This  is 
putting  devotion  to  the  Church  upon  its  lowest 
ground.     It  is  well  sometimes  to  remember  lowest 


808      THE   DEVOTION    TO    THE   TRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

grounds   for  tilings.     Important  rights  arc  often 
founded  in  them.     Not  (infrequently  the  essences 
of  things   lie   hidden    in   them.     The}'   ought  not 
therefore  to  be  abandoned  or  despised.     To  me, 
then,  the  Church   is  what  the  starry  skies  are   to 
the  astronomer.     1   know  there  are  other  things 
in   creation   besides  the   Church  ;  but  I  am   only 
very  partial!}*  interested  in  them.      Practically  to 
me  the  world   means  the  Church.     For  the  only 
interest    I    can    take    in    the   world    outside   the 
Church  arises  from  the  fact  that  the  Church  must 
be  affected   by  its   movements.      I  delight  in   all 
progresses  of  science,  because  they  are  an  addition 
to   the   science   of    theology.      I    sympathize   ar- 
dently with  all  social  progresses,  because  they  are 
at  once,  whether   as   difficulties   or   as   facilities, 
questions  of  soul-saving.     The  revelations  of  sta- 
tistics   form   a    sort   of    hand-book    for    catholic 
charity.     Psychology  illustrates  the   Sacraments. 
Political   changes   interest   me;   for   they  all   act 
upon  the  wonderful  fortunes  of  the  Holy  See,  and 
are  mostly  for  its  ultimate  advancement.     All  real 
widening  of  men's  minds  by  education,  or  litera- 
ture, or  art,  is  an  effacing  of  prejudices   against 
the  Church,  and  facilitates  conversion.     In  almost 
every  department  of  knowledge   the  world,  as  it 
ndvances,  keeps  answering   its  own  objections  to 
religion;  and  this  is  both  grateful  and  interesting. 
All  that  is  wide,  deep,  forward,  active,  trustful,  is 
most   congenial    with    the    spirit  of   the  Church. 
Even  the  grand   old   science  of  history  has  taken 
to  discovery;    and  its  discoveries,   one  after  the 
other,   are    so   many  reparations  to   the  Church. 
The  Church  is  my  centre.     I  look  aJ,  all  things  as 


THE   DEVOTION    TO    THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.      309 

revolving  round  it;  and  my  interest  in  them  is 
proportioned  to  their  action  upon  it.  The  Church 
is  my  science,  my  taste,  my  interest,  and  my 
attraction.  J  do  not  sneer  at  the  devotion  of  the 
astronomer,  and  lie  must  not  sneer  at  mine.  I 
tolerate  the  metaphysician,  and  he  must  tolerate 
me.  1  have  neither  fears,  suspicions,  nor  jealous- 
ies of  his  philosophy;  he  must  have  none  of  my 
theology. 

But,  in  reality,  devotion  to  the  Church  may  rest 
upon  higher  grounds  than  these.  In  my  own 
mind  it  rests  upon  this, — and  I  say  it  with  all 
reverence, — that  it  is  God's  own  devotion.  It  is 
God's  creation  within  his  own  creation,  a  creation 
called  into  being  with  a  specialty  of  love,  created 
with  the  miraculous  toil  and  human  Bloodshed- 
ding  of  the  Omnipotent.  It  is  his  own  life,  his 
own  created  life,  in  creation.  Its  history  is  his 
biography  upon  earth.  Its  form  is  the  abiding 
of  his  Incarnation  among  men.  It  is  thus  forever 
repeating  his  Three-and-Thirty  Years.  It  is  not 
that  he  does  not  love  the  whole  world,  and  the 
most  out-lying  souls  in  the  world,  with  a  strange 
surpassing  love.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  for  the 
very  sake  of  the  world  that  he  loves  the  Church 
with  a  better  love.  If  his  almighty  wisdom  saw 
fit  to  overwhelm  our  liberty  with  its  constraints, 
its  first  act  would  be  to  turn  the  whole  world  into 
the  Church,  making  the  Church  and  the  world  one 
and  the  same  thing.  The  world  is  his  creation  as 
Creator;  and  our  wretchedness  did  not  find  its 
prodigality  of  love  sufficient.  The  Church  is  his 
creat:on  as  Redeemer;  and  it  lies  in  furnaces  of 
divine  love    heated   seven   times   hotter  than   the 


310      THE   DEVOTION    TO   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

furnaces  of  creation.  Thus  the  Church  is  his 
devotion,  his  complacency.  He  loves  it  with  a 
special,  an  electing  love.  This  is  the  true  ground 
of  our  devotion  to  the  Church.  It  is  God's  own 
devotion.  It  is  his  choicest  way  of  loving  us.  It 
is  our  choicest  way  of  loving  him. 

But  let  us  think  of  this,  hoth  more  in  detail  and 
more  at  large.  As  a  place  the  Church  is  a  crea- 
tion within  creation,  the  royal  residence  of  the 
Creator-King.  To  its  privileged  jurisdiction  is 
granted  the  full  royalty  of  the  whole  world.  Its 
laws  are  holiness.  Its  atmosphere  is  grace.  Its 
forms  are  copies  of  divine  things.  Its  nature  is 
transfigured  with  supernatural  energies.  Its  so- 
lemnities are  celestial  mysteries.  It  is  a  life,  and 
a  giving  of  life  But  it  is  not  only  a  divine  copy 
of  divine  things.  It  contains  divine  things,  and 
lives  b}r  them.  In  peculiar  ways  of  its  own,  it 
contains  the  Divine  Persons.  Thus,  its  life  is  not 
a  mere  likeness  of  God,  though  it  is  a  likeness 
of  him.  But,  when  faith  looks  upon  his  likeness, 
it  sees  a  further  vision.  The  tabernacles  of  the 
Church  blossom  as  with  light;  the  lineaments  of 
the  Church  fade  as  in  a  glorious  conflagration, 
obliterated  by  the  intensity  of  splendor;  and, 
behold!  it  is  Jesus  himself,  God  and  Man,  within 
whose  life  we  have  been  living;  and  the  glory 
had  been  so  gentle  that  we  perished  not!  The 
mystery  of  the  Blessed  Sacrament  is  the  truth 
of  the  life  of  the  Church.  We  can  see  and  revere 
the  magnificence  of  tho  Church.  But  we  shall 
know  the  Church  better,  and  appreciate  it  more 
truly,  when  we  have  seen  God.  We  shall  perceive 
then,    that    the    Chirch    was    even    more    lull    uf 


THE    DEVOTION    TO    THE    PRECIOUS    BLC  OD.       oil 

divine  mysteries  than  we  supposed  it  was.  Thin 
is  the  ease  with  all  created  things.  We  must  see 
the  Creator,  in  order  to  understand  the  pleaitudo 

of  their  beauty.  But  it  will  be  more  especially 
so  with  the  Church,  because  of  its  special  dignity 
in  creation.  We  see  the  mountains  mirrored  in 
the  lake  with  exquisite  distinctness.  But  when 
we  have  looked  up  to  the  mountains  themselves, 
and  learned  them  in  themselves,  the  images  in 
the  lake  are  more  charming,  more  distinct,  more 
evidently  like,  more  fascinatingly  like,  than  they 
seemed  to  be  before.  To  the  eve  of  God  the 
Church  must  look  most  wonderful.  It  is  the 
wrork  of  art  on  which  all  the  adorable  incredi- 
bilities of  redemption  have  been  expended.  Every 
attribute  has  tried  its  handicraft  upon  it.  It 
expresses  the  secrets  of  the  Incomprehensible,  the 
vearnina;s  of  the  Ever-blessed,  the  desires  of  the 
Eternal.  It  is  draped  with  the  golden  magni- 
ficence of  everlasting  decrees.  The  beauty  of  the 
Divine  Mind  is  suli'used  around  it  like  an  im- 
palpable atmosphere  of  loveliness.  Once  he  saw 
the  woods,  and  the  mountains,  and  the  lakes,  and 
the  foaming  rivers,  and  the  flowery  plains,  which 
he  had  made,  and  he  remained  outside  them,  and 
gave  them  his  paternal  benediction  But  when  be 
had  created  the  Church,  not  of  earth  and  of  his 
word,  but  of  his  Blood  and  Breath,  its  fair  beauty 
so  won  upon  him  that  he  came  into  it,  and  multi- 
plied himself,  and  hid  himself,  in  her  tabernacles, 
as  the  birds  hide  themselves  within  the  mighty 
woods. 

This  is  the   simple  account  of  the  Church,  the 
chief  thing  to  be  said  of  it,  but  not  the  only  thing. 


312      THE   DEVOTION    TO   THE  PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

It  mirrors  the  hierarchies  of  the  angels  as  -well  as 
the  magnificence  of  God.  It  not  only  imitates 
their  orders  and  operations,  but  it  supplies  them 
with  new  ministries,  and  is  every  day  enlivening 
them  with  fresh  J03-S.  Its  life  is  bound  up  with 
theirs,  and  its  children  mingle  with  them  and 
become  members  of  their  choirs.  As  to  men,  it 
initiates  them  into  a  divine  citizenship.  It  explains 
their  destinies.  It  ennobles  their  disabilities.  It 
anticipates  their  glory.  It  gives  a  value  to  their 
sorrows  and  a  significance  to  their  joys.  It  eman- 
cipates them  from  their  own  littleness,  and  it  con- 
veys to  them  God's  forgiveness  of  their  sins.  It 
puts  ihem  to  dwell  in  the  suburbs  of  heaven  even 
while  they  are  still  being  tried  on  earth.  As  a 
power,  the  Church  has  been  the  most  unearthly, 
the  most  remarkable,  the  most  successful  upon 
earth.  It  has  no  parallel  and  no  analogy.  It  is  a 
problem  which  .neither  historical  nor  political  nor 
philosophical  solutions  satisfy.  It  has  a  history 
of  peculiar  interest  and  of  the  most  extraordinary 
variety.  In  duration  its  chronicles  surpass  those 
of  the  most  ancient  monarchy.  The  records  of 
revolutions  are  less  various,  while  the  history  of  a 
single  town  is  less  consistent.  In  the  romance  of 
vicissitudes  and  in  dramatic  changes  no  history  is 
to  be  compared  to  it.  In  our  own  times  it  is  lead- 
ing a  very  peculiar  life  under  entirely  novel  circum- 
stances ;  and  in  the  midst  of  universal  fluctuation 
and  distrust  it  is  a  monument  of  self-eontident  tran- 
quillity. It  is  certain  of  ultimate  conquest,  and 
equally  certain  of  present  suffering.  Its  power 
and  its  spirit  tire  felt  in  the  most  retired  sanctu- 
aries of  the  private  life  of  a  hundred  bloods  and 


THE   DEVOTION    TO   TI1K   PRECIOUS    ELOOD.      313 

nations.  Yet  all  this  is  without  sound  and  without 
effort.  While  it  is  as  solid  as  adamant,  it  is  as  per- 
vasive as  the  air.  Who  ever  saw  any  thing  earthly 
like  it?  Moreover,  it  is  the  only  institution  of 
time  which  will  he  prolonged  into  eternity.  The 
grandest  monarchies  of  earth  will  east  no  shadow- 
in  heaven.  Dumbness  and  oblivion  will  pass  upon 
all  philosophies.  ISTot  a  single  literature  has  any 
eternal  meaning.  The  most  magnificent  civiliza- 
tion represents  nothing  on  the  other  side  of  the 
grave.  The  most  glorious  revolutions  have  only  a 
temporal  significance.  The  fortunes  of  the  whole 
earth  will  leave  no  impression,  will  transfer  no 
lines,  upon  eternity,  further  than  as  they  may 
have  helped  or  hindered  the  salvation  of  this  or 
that  individual  soul;  whereas  the  grandeur  of  the 
Church  on  earth  is  but  a  prelude  to  its  grandeur 
up  in  heaven. 

It  is  no  wonder,  then,  that  the  Church  should 
lay  such  a  singular  grasp  on  our  affections  and 
our  loyalty.  On  the  lowest  grounds  it  may  rank 
with  astronomy,  or  psychology,  or  politics,  as  the 
devotion  of  a  life ;  only  that  the  exclusiveness  of 
the  devotion,  which  in  the  case  of  those  sectional 
sciences  is  a  narrowness  and  a  defect,  is  here  a  de- 
votedness  rather  than  an  exclusiveness,  because 
that  which  is  universal  cannot  be  exclusive.  Devo- 
tion to  the  Church  combines  all  interests.  It  takes 
in  every  duty.  It  piovides  for  every  responsibility. 
It  intensifies  every  love.  It  embraces  all  social 
life,  and  ennobles  it  by  its  embrace.  It  penetrates 
all  private  life,  and  sanctifies  it  by  its  j)enetration. 
It  is  the  unity  of  all  knowledge  and  the  harmony 
of  all  philosophy.     It  is  interested  in  all  diploma- 

27 


81-1      THE   DEVOTION    TO   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

cics,  and  it  survives  them  all.  Its  minuteness 
allows  nothing  to  be  overlooked,  while  its  compre- 
hensiveness includes  every  thing  within  its  influ- 
ence. In  a  word,  the  Church  is  that  part  of  every 
thing,  that  side  of  every  thing,  that  view  of  every 
thing,  that  interference  with  every  thing,  which 
represents  the  double  sovereignty  and  jurisdiction 
of  the  Creator  and  the  Redeemer. 

All  this,  as  we  shall  see  shortly,  is  part  of  the 
devotion  to  the  Precious  Blood.  But  we  must 
pass  on  at  present  to  look  at  the  Chinch  from  one 
particular  point  of  view, — its  life  of  devotions.  In 
nothing  is  the  beauty  of  the  Church  more  ravish- 
ing, or  its  disclosures  more  intimately  divine.  Full 
of  divine  instincts,  its  worship  grows  with  all  the 
exuberance  of  a  tropical  forest,  covering  itself  with 
verdure  and  with  blossoms.  It  puts  forth  its  devo- 
tions with  all  the  freedom  of  a  tree  which  has 
liberty  to  spread  on  all  sides.  Everywhere  it  is 
free  of  the  sun  and  air.  There  is  nothing  to  hinder 
its  development,  nothing  to  hamper  its  genius, 
nothing  to  disfigure  its  natural  forms  and  ampli- 
tudes of  beauty.  The  diversity  of  its  blossoms  is 
astonishing.  It  makes  devotions  out  of  joys,  out 
of  sorrows,  and  out  of  glories.  It  has  a  treasury 
of  innumerable  mysteries,  and  out  of  every  1113-s- 
tcry  it  can  unfold  many  devotions.  Ages  roll  on. 
None  of  the  old  blossoms  wither  or  fall  off.  Yet 
new  varieties  are  added.  Its  colors  grow  more 
beautiful  than  ever,  and  its  fragrances  are  multi- 
plied. This  is  the  way  in  which  the  age  of  the 
Church  is  forever  clothing  itself  with  the  loveli- 
ness of  a  new  youth.  It  is  more  beautiful  now 
than  il  was  three  centuries  ago;  and  three  eentu 


THE   DEVOTION    TO    THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD.      315 

rics  hence  we  shall  almost  envy  out  of  our  calm  in 
heaven  the  fortune  of  those  who  come  after  us,  and 
are   sanctified    by   the    novelties  of  glory  in   the 
Church.     Taken  with  all  its  array  of  manifold  de- 
votions,  the  Church  -worships   the    Holy  Trinity 
with   such  magnificently  expansive    freedom  and 
such  large  variety  that  we  can  hardly,  even  in  our 
imagination,  embrace  it  in  one  view.    Yet  there  is 
a  deep-seated  unity  in  this  diversity  of  worship. 
When  we  see  a  tree  in  a  favorable  soil  and  posi- 
tion  as  it  were  wantoning   in    its   robust  vijror, 
flinging  out  its  year's  growth  on  this  side  and  on 
that,  here  filling  itself  in  with  close  pendant  foliage 
in  curves  which  might  have  been  drawn  with  in- 
struments, there  presenting  an    indented  outline 
with   inlets  of  blue    sky  among   its   branches,   it 
seems  hard  to  believe  that  there  is  a  law  under  all 
this  irregular  exuberance;    and  yet  so  it  is.     In 
like  manner  dogmatic  theology  is  the  hidden  law, 
the  infallible  unitj-  of  all  this  multiform  devotion 
of  the  Church.    It  is  a  law,  whose  control  is  unerr- 
ing and  never  relaxed,  and  yet  whose  pressure  in 
no  way  checks  exuberance.     Indeed,  it  would  be 
more  true  to  say  that  the  very  law  itself  is  the 
prolific  fountain  of  these  varieties.     The  science  of 
theology  is  forever  passing  into  love,  and,  as  love 
receives  it,  it  transmutes  it  into  devotion.     These 
devotions  of  the  Church  are  the  giving  forth  of  its 
private  affections  and  secret  inner  life.     By  them 
we  know  the   Church  better  than    by  f.ny   thing 
else.    They  are  the  action  of  the  Holy  Ghost  upon 
her  heart,  made  visible  by  this  perennial  spring- 
tide of  heavenly  flowers.     We  may  say  that  wo 
come  to  know  that  Ever-blessed  Spirit  better  by 


31G      TIIE   DEVOTION    TO    THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

these  devotions  than  by  any  thing  else.     They  are 
a  revelation  of  himself. 

If  we  examine  this  seemingly  confused  multituiu 
of  devotions,  we  shall  find  that  they  may  be  parted 
off' into  two  spheres,  forming  indeed  but  one  world, 
and  the  one  sphere  for  the  most  part  lying  within 
the  other.  Nevertheless,  we  shall  attain  clearness 
by  so  regarding  it;  and  in  fact  the  division  is  a 
real  one.  One  sphere  of  devotions  is  based  upon 
the  Incarnation.  It  glasses  the  Thirty-Three 
Years,  and  continually  lives  them  over  again  in 
devotions.  The  Soul  of  Jesus,  his  Body,  his  Blood, 
and  the  Divinity,  as  united  to  the  Sacred  Human- 
ity, are  abysses  which  seem  to  give  forth  devotions 
inexhaustibly.  In  reading  the  lives  of  saints  and 
holy  persons  we  are  constantly  coming  across  de- 
votions which  we  never  heard  of  before.  The 
seventeenth  century  alone  gave  birth  to  some  hun- 
dreds. Among  the  Carmelites  they  have  gone  on 
blooming  as  in  a  garden  ever  since  the  days  of  St. 
Teresa.  Sometimes  a  holy  man  has  looked  at  the 
Incarnation  under  a  new  aspect,  due  partly  to  the 
peculiarity  of  his  own  genius  and  partly  to  the 
characteristics  of  his  times, — not  of  course  without 
God  impressing  a  direction  upon  these  things, — • 
and  then  his  influence  or  his  writings  have  given 
birth  to  manifold  devotions.  This  is  the  case  with 
Cardinal  Bcrulle,  with  Father  Condren,  Father 
Eudes,  and  also  with  Olier,  in  Fiance.  The  same 
may  be  said  of  Maria  Tommasi,  Isabella  Farnese, 
Domenica  del  Paradiso,  St.  Mary  Magdalene  of 
Pazzi,  and  Cberubina  dell'  Agnus  Dei,  among  tho 
Italians.  St.  Gertrude,  St  JMLecntilcTis,  and  El:za- 
beth  of  Schaunborg  have  done  the  same  in  Ger- 


THE   DEVOTION   TO   THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD.      317 

many;  and  Marina  d'Escobar,  Mary  of  Agrcda, 
Mary  of  Antigua,  and  Isabella  of  Beniganim.  tor 
the  Spanish  peninsula.  While  one  set  of  devotions 
have  followed  the  division  of  the  Soul,  the  Body, 
the  Blood,  and  the  Divinity  of  Jesus,  another  set 
have  gone  by  times  and  places.  Bethlehem, Egypt, 
Nazareth,  Galilee,  and  Jerusalem  have  each  their 
constellations  of  devotion  proper  to  them.  Then 
again,  devotions  follow  the  different  lives  of  our 
Blessed  Lord, — his  Life  in  the  Womb,  his  Infant 
Life,  his  Hidden  Life,  his  Public  Life,  his  Suffering 
Life,  his  Risen  Life,  his  Ascended  Life,  and  his 
Sacramental  Life.  Or  they  follow  his  offices,  or 
his  Names,  or  his  joj'S,  or  his  sorrows,  or  his  glo- 
ries, or  his  journeys,  or  his  words,  or  his  apostles, 
or  classes  of  his  actions.  Again,  his  Mother  is  a 
perfect  world  of  devotions,  with  her  various  mys- 
teries and  ministries  and  offices  and  graces  and 
endurances  and  identifications  with  himself.  For 
eighteen  hundred  years  Catholic  devotions  have 
come  forth  from  the  Incarnation,  as  from  an  in- 
ward world  of  spiritual  beauty,  in  magnificent  pro- 
cession. There  is  no  sicm  of  their  ending.  Each 
new  devotion  seems  to  make  more  devotions  pos- 
sible. They  multiply  by  the  very  outpouring  of 
them.  Each  devotion  becomes  the  head  of  a  family 
of  devotions.  It  seizes  upon  some  saint  or  upon 
some  religious  congregation,  and  perpetuates  itself, 
and  multiplies  itself,  and  is  a  fresh  visible  adorn- 
ment to  the  Church.  Nothing  gives  us  such  a 
vivid  idea  of  the  inexhaustible  treasures  of  the 
Thirty-Three  Years  as  this  multiplicity  of  devo- 
tions. We  see  how  the  eternal  contemplation  of 
the  Blessed  may  feed  itself  upon  those  years,  and 


318      THE   DEVOTION    TO    THE   TRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

they  shall  yet  remain  unfathomcd  and,  by  created 
intellect,  unfathomable. 

These  devotions  are  like  particular  revelations 
They  arc  constantly  telling-  us  either  what  we  did 
not  know  before  about  our  clearest  Lord,  or  what 
had  never  struck  us  before.  It  is  the  Holy  Ghost 
adding  to  our  knowledge  of  Jesus,  or  bringing  to 
our  minds  his  sayings,  his  doings,  and  his  ways. 
The  theology  of  these  devotions,  and  the  way  in 
which  they  are  started  and  propagated  by  the  pri- 
vate revelations  of  the  saints,  by  visions,  voices, 
and  apparitions,  make  them  to  be  a  sort  of  com- 
plement to  the  Four  Gospels.  This,  then,  is  one 
view  which  the  Church  presents  to  us  in  her  devo- 
tions. If  we  could  sec  her  in  her  whole  extent, 
we  should  see  this  Bride  of  Christ  living  over 
again,  in  all  its  breadth,  if  not  in  all  its  depth,  the 
earthly  life  of  Jesus:  or,  to  speak  more  accurately, 
he  is  living  it  endlessly  over  again  in  her.  There 
are  a  thousand  Bethlehems,  a  thousand  Nazarcths, 
and  a  thousand  Calvaries,  scattered  through  the 
Church.  There  are  visible  similitudes  of  his  out- 
ward actions.  There  are  ascetieal  reiterations  of 
his  inward  dispositions.  There  are  mystical  con- 
tinuances of  his  various  lives.  The  whole  earth 
has  come  to  be  a  Holy  Land.  Palestine  has  swelled 
out  into  a  world.  Every  Christian  family  is  a 
Bethlehem.  Every  catholic  village  is  a  Nazareth, 
every  city  a  Jerusalem.  All  shrines  of  human 
sorrow  are  Gethsemanes.  There  are  Calvaries 
everywhere.  There  are  countless  cloisters,  nay, 
countless  single  hearts,  which  are  in  themselves 
Bethlehem,  Nazareth,  and  Calvary  at  once.  Look 
over  the  Church  with  this  light  upon  it;  and  then 


THE    DEVOTION    TO    THE    TRECIOUS   BLOOD.       319 

look  upward  to  the  Face  of  Jesus  bending  over  it 
in  tonderness  and  joyous  love,  and  think  how  holy 
and  how  zealous  and  how  ardent  must  be  our 
devotion  to  the  Church,  if  it  is  to  resemble  his 
complacency. 

The  other  sphere  of  the  devotions  of  the  Church 
is  based  upon  the  Attributes  of  Cod.  What  the 
various  mysteries  of  Jesus  are  in  one  sphere  of 
devotions,  the  various  Attributes  of  God  are  in  the 
other.  The  Church  receives  from  heaven  upon 
its  placid  bosom  the  image  of  Jesus;  it  receives 
also  the  image  of  the  Uncreated.  We  can  worship 
God  in  his  simplicity.  We  can  also  have  a  special 
devotion  to  his  simplicity.  But  in  this  latter  case 
Ave  are  regarding  his  simplicity  as  one  of  his 
Attributes.  We  cannot  have  a  devotion  to  God  as 
God.  We  simply  worship  the  Majesty  of  the  God- 
head with  trembling  adoration.  The  feeling  and 
the  act  are  distinct  from  devotion.  But  we  can  be 
said  to  have  a  devotion  to  the  various  Attributes 
into  which  we  divide  his  simplicity  and  by  which 
avo  conceive  his  perfection.  In  strict  truth,  as  I 
have  warned  you  before,  he  is  all  his  Attributes, 
and  all  his  Attributes  are  himself.  But,  in  our  lan- 
guage and  in  our  conceptions,  his  Attributes  are 
not  himself:  they  are  less  than  himself;  the}'  are 
parts,  for  so  our  ignorance  necessitates  us  to  depict 
them,  of  Him  who  is  indivisible.  Thus  they  stand 
in  the  same  relation  to  God  that  the  mysteries  of 
the  Incarnation  stand  in  to  our  Lord.  When  we 
have  a  devotion  to  one  of  our  Lord's  joys,  we  know 
that  there  is  something  which  it  does  not  include, 
either  other  joys,  or  his  sorrows,  or  his  glories.  So 
when  m  e  have  a  devotion  to  God's  justice,  we  know 


320       TIIE   DEVOTION    TO   THE    PRECIOUS    ELOOO. 

that  wo  are  for  the  present  leaving  out  of  direct 
view  his  mercy.  The  finite  may  worship  the  In- 
finite as  infinite,  and  in  his  unity.  Jt  can  only 
study  the  Infinite  in  detail;  and  these  details  are 
the  creations  and  conveniences  of  its  own  limited 
mind,  not  substantive  external  truths.  Thus  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  omnipotence:  but  there  is  a 
Being  who  is  omnipotent,  or  (if  the  idiom  of  our 
language  would  have  permitted  me  so  to  express 
myself)  who  is  omnipotence.  There  is  no  such 
thing  as  omnipresence:  but  there  is  a  Being  who  is 
omnipresent.  I  say  this  for  the  sake  of  accuracy, 
and  to  anticipate  misunderstanding.  But  the 
devotion  to  the  Attributes  of  God  is  practically  a 
very  simple  matter  to  the  most  ordinarily  pious 
believer. 

Among  the  children  of  the  Church,  chiefly  but 
not  exclusively  those  Who  are  aiming  at  perfection, 
there  exists  this  devotion  to  the  Attributes  of  God. 
It  is  less  universal,  as  a  special  devotion,  than  de- 
votions to  the  Incarnation;  and  it  has  also  this 
peculiarity,  that,  whereas  devotion  to  the  mys- 
teries of  the  Sacred  Humanity  can  exist  without 
any  special  or  pronounced  devotion  to  the  Attri- 
butes of  God,  this  last  devotion  is  always  accom- 
panied by  some  special  devotions  founded  on  the 
Incarnation.  It  is  one  of  the  common  marks  of  a 
spiritual  delusion,  when  men  are  without  some 
special  devotion  to  the  mysteries  of  Jesus,  and 
affect  to  meditate  or  contemplate  the  divine  per- 
fections instead.  Some  holy  persons  have  a  pecu- 
liar devotion  to  the  Attributes  of  God  in  general, 
and  in  their  prayers  change  from  one  to  another; 
and   this  change   is  very  often   influenced  by  the 


THE    DEVOTION    TO    TIIE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.      o21 

leasts  and  seasons  of  the  }rcar,  in  consequence  of 
the  connection  and  sympathy  which  appear  to 
exist  between  particular  Attributes  of  God  and 
particular  mysteries  of  the  Incarnation.  Others, 
again,  devote  themselves  to  honor  some  one  Attri- 
bute, and  to  make  it  the  main,  if  not  the  sole, 
subject  of  their  meditations.  There  are  examples 
of  this  devotion,  which  carry  with  them  great 
authority.  Some  have  always  had  this  attraction 
to  the  Attributes  of  God;  and  it  has  even  given  a 
peculiar  shape  to  their  devotion  to  the  mysteries 
of  Jesus,  especially  the  Passion.  Some  have  arrived 
at  it  through  long  meditation  on  the  Sacred  IIu- 
inanity,  as  if  they  had  been  raised  by  the  con- 
templation of  the  Sacred  Humanity  to  that  of  the 
Divinity.  But  even  in  this  case  the  devotion  to 
the  Sacred  Humanity  is  rather  heightened  than 
abandoned.  These  positive  devotions  to  the  divine 
Attributes  arise  very  often  from  the  characteristics 
of  the  mind  and  disposition,  not  of  course  without 
the  concurrence  of  grace,  and  even  some  special 
leadings  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Sometimes  the 
attraction  seems  to  be  entirely  supernatural,  and 
not  unfrequently  distinct  and  sudden  like  a  voca- 
tion. 

But  these  attractions  to  the  Divine  Attributes, 
like  those  of  the  mysteries  of  the  Incarnation,  do 
not  always  rest  in  devotion.  They  assign  voca- 
tions and  pursuits.  They  cast  a  man's  external 
actions  into  some  peculiar  mould.  The  whole  life 
becomes  shaped  on  the  Attribute  to  which  the 
soul  is  specially  devoted.  This  is  more  particularly 
the  case  with  the  two  Attributes  of  justice  and 
sanctity.  Some  saintly  persons,  devoted  to  these 
V 


322       THE   DEVOTION   TO    THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

Attribute!!,  have  been  bidden  to  lead  lives  of  mar- 
vellous expiations  or  reparations.  The  instincts 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  have  urged  them  into  terrible 
novelties  of  penance,  or  strange  depths  of  inward 
self-abasement.  Their  lives  have  been  admirable 
rather  than  imitable.  Instances  of  this  might  be 
given  from  the  Chronicles  of  Religious  Orders, 
especially  those  of  Carmel  and  the  Visitation,  and 
also  from  the  lives  of  many  of  those  who  have  had 
the  stigmata.  If  devotion  to  the  Attributes  of 
God  proceeds  to  the  extremity  of  moulding  the 
outward  life,  much  more  may  we  expect  to  find  it 
shaping  inward  holiness,  and  stamping  a  peculiar 
character  upon  our  spirituality.  Even  the  eternity 
of  God,  seemingly  the  least  likely  of  his  Attri- 
butes for  such  a  purpose,  has  been  made  to  be  the 
form  of  the  holiness  of  some  very  interior  and 
elevated  souls.* 

I  believe  the  agency  of  the  Attributes  of  God 
in  the  spiritual  life  to  be  much  more  extensive 
than  is  commonly  supposed.  In  other  words,  the 
Church  is  a  truer  image  of  the  invisible  majesty 
of  God  than  our  faith  is  ordinarily  allowed  to 
perceive.  His  perfections  impress  themselves  upon 
his  creatures,  very  deeply,  even  when  invisibly. 
There  are  certain  phenomena  in  the  spiritual  life, 
very  delicate  and  very  volatile,  which  lead  to  tho 
supposition  that  the  action  of  some  one  Attribute 
lies  at  the  bottom  of  each  man's  vocation,  as  well 
as  of  each  devotion  in  the  Church.  If  this  be  so, 
and  if  we  consider  it  in  connection  with  the  affinity 

*  See  the  iustance  of  Anne  Serapbine  Bculler,  quoted  in 
Chapter  I. 


THE    DEVOTION   TO   THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD.      323 

between  nature  and  grace,  Ave  shall  sometimes 
wonder  whether  each  soul  that  is  created  is  not 
created  in  the  special  likeness  of  some  one  Attri- 
bute of  God,  ranged  as  it  were  under  the  banners 
of  that  one  Attribute,  and  called  by  a  very  sweet 
vocation  to  form  its  life  upon  it. 

But  these  are  speculations.  Certain  it  is,  that 
the  Church  worships  God  in  all  his  breadth,  so  far 
as  creatures  can  do  so,  and  produces  a  unity  of 
worship  through  this  multiplicity  of  devotions  to 
his  perfections.  One  soul,  one  saint,  one  order, 
cannot  do  the  whole  work  by  itself;  but  the  whole 
work  is  done,  and  it  is  done  by  the  harmony  and 
conjunction  of  them  all.  It  is  the  affectionate 
conspiracy  of  all  created  beauty  to  make  a  worthy 
offering  to  the  Uncreated  Loveliness.  It  is  difficult 
to  make  pictures  of  spiritual  things.  But  it  brings 
wonderful  thoughts  into  our  minds,  and  vast  inde- 
scribable images,  if  we  try  to  picture  the  Church 
to  ourselves  as  thus  outstretching  itself  to  enclose 
all  the  Attributes  of  the  Most  High,  one  while 
rising  to  each  of  them,  like  the  arms  of  the  great 
sea  flung  upward  to  the  moon,  and  offering  to  each 
the  incense  of  a  peculiar  devotion, — and  then 
another  while  lying  passive  while  they  descend 
upon  it,  and  leave  upon  it  nameless  signs  of  their 
mysterious  contact.  The  depths  of  the  Church, 
like  the  depths  of  ocean,  are  fields  of  wild  flowery 
loveliness,  strangely  lighted  by  the  sun  through 
the  translucent  waters;  and  thither  the  glory  of 
God  descends,  at  twilight  as  he  came  to  Adam,  or 
at  midnight  as  he  came  to  Mary,  or  in  the  morning 
as  he  came  to  Israel  in  the  wilderness,  to  pasture 
the  beautiful  flock  of  his  pei-fections.     The  Church 


324      THE   DEVOTION    TO    THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

~-io  is  the  fairest  of  her  splendors — is  the  mother 
of  her  Maker's  glory. 

It  is  natural,  almost  necessary,  when  wo  are 
speaking  of  the  devotions  of  the  Church,  to  speak 
also,  and  once  again,  of  devotion  to  the  Church  ; 
but  it  is  still  more  necessary  to  do  so,  when  we 
have  to  speak  of  the  devotion  to  the  Precious 
Blood.  The  Church,  as  we  have  already  said,  is 
the  creation  of  the  Precious  Blood,  the  institution 
which  it  has  founded,  and  "wherein  its  virtue  con- 
tinues to  reside.  It  is  impossible  to  study  the 
grandeurs  of  the  Precious  Blood  without  being  led 
at  almost  every  step  into  the  magnificences  of  the 
Sacraments  j  and  then  again  the  Sacraments  are 
the  structure  of  the  Church.  The  theology  of  the 
Sacraments  and  the  theology  of  the  Church  are 
but  one.  We  cannot  separate  them  without 
making  both  of  them  unintelligible.  With  these 
theologies,  the  theology  of  the  Precious  Blood  is 
also  inextricably  intertwined.  This  will  strike 
any  thoughtful  student  of  theology.  Moreover, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  Precious  Blood  ministers 
especially  to  the  dominion  and  magnificence  of 
God;  and  the  Church  is  the  living  vicegerent  of 
God's  dominion,  and  the  Sacraments  are  a  peculiar 
and  unparalleled  emanation  of  his  magnificence; 
and  thus  from  another  point  of  view  the  Precious 
Blood  is  bound  up  with  the  Church  and  the  Sacra- 
ments. The  instincts  of  the  saints  have  united 
the  two  devotions.  Those,  whose  lives  strike  us 
because  of  the  active  interest  the}-  took  in  the 
outward  politics  and  destinies  of  the  Church,  an  in- 
terest often  at  seeming  variance  with  their  manifest 
call  to  contemplation,  are  almost  always  found  to 


THE   DEVOTION    TO    THE    TRECIOUS   BLOOD.       325 

have  had  a  peculiar  devotion  to  the  Precious  Blood. 
The  Precious  Blood  magnifies  the  Church,  and  tho 
Church  magnifies  the  Precious  Blood.  There  was 
once  a  narrow-minded  heresy  which  denied  that 
the  Precious  Blood  was  shed  for  all,  maintaining 
that  it  was  shed  only  for  a  chosen  few.  Like  all 
heresies  which  depreciate  the  grandeurs  of  Jesus, 
it  was  an  especially  soul-destroying  heresy;  and, 
like  all  soul-destroying  heresies,  it  clothed  itself  in 
the  garb  of  harshness,  as  if  the  pomp  of  rigor 
was  to  give  it  the  venerable  dignity  of  holiness. 
We  shall  avoid  falling  into  cognate  errors  about 
the  Church,  if  we  remember  its  connection  with 
the  Precious  Blood.  The  object  of  the  Church, 
like  the  object  of  the  Precious  Blood,  is  univer- 
sality. It  is  not  a  snare  of  God  to  overwhelm 
poor  souls  with  the  insupportable  responsibilities 
of  terrible  privileges.  It  is  an  institution  for  the 
express  purpose  of  making  salvation  easier,  shorter, 
safer,  more  various,  and  more  universal.  Its  ex- 
clusiveness  is  concentration  rather  than  exclusive- 
ncss.  It  is  its  surest  and  its  swiftest  road  to  being 
universal.  If  the  responsibilities  of  grace  were 
actually  difficulties  in  the  way  of  salvation,  it  is 
plain  that  heathenism  would  be  the  best  religion, 
because  it  would  be  the  least  perilous.  If  the  pro- 
digality of  God's  love  be  only  a  burden  made  the 
more  crushing  by  its  beautiful  excess,  then  God's 
gifts  are  snares  to  entrap  his  creatures,  for  the 
future  purpose  of  justifying  his  vengeance.  If  men 
are  less  likely  to  be  saved  because  they  have  more 
to  answer  for,  it  is  cruel  to  preach  the  Gospel,  bar- 
barous to  invite  them  into  the  Church,  treacherous 
to  allure  them  to  the  Sacraments.     On  this  theory, 

23 


32G       THE    DEVOTION    TO   THE   TRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

the  Church  is  part  of  the  machinery  of  God's  vin- 
dictive justice;  and  it  is  not  life,  as  the  Bible  calls 
it,  but  a  greater  likelihood  of  death,  "to  know  God 
and  Jesus  Christ  whom  lie  has  sent."  This  unfilial 
depreciation  of  the  Church  is  also  a  depreciation 
of  the  grandeurs  of  Jesus,  similar  to  that  of 
Jansenism,  though  coining  by  a  different  road  and 
from,  an  opposite  quarter.  It  will  be  found  to  be 
accompanied  with  the  same  disestecm  of  the  Sacra- 
ments, and  to  delight  in  the  same  parade  of  rigor. 
But  it  is  a  theory  which  cannot  consist  with  a  life 
of  prayer,  and  which  will  wither  before  a  growing 
devotion  to  the  Precious  Blood.  We  must  learn 
the  theology  of  the  Church  and  of  the  Sacraments 
in  its  union  with  the  theology  of  the  Precious 
Blood.  Theology  will  make  our  devotion  more 
devout;  and  devotion  will  make  our  theology  more 
true. 

In  treating  of  the  devotion  to  the  Precious  Blood 
we  naturally  begin  with  its  history.  In  one  sense, 
and  a  very  notable  sense,  the  whole  history  of  the 
Church  is  a  history  of  the  devotion  to  the  Precious 
Blood;  for  it  is  a  histoiy  of  the  preaching  of  the 
Gospel,  and  of  the  administration  of  the  Sacra- 
ments. It  is  the  prominent  devotion  of  dogmatic 
theology  ;  for  it  is  that  upon  which  the  doctrine  of 
redemption  lays  the  greatest  stress.  But  Ave  are 
speaking  of  it  rather  as  a  special  and  separate 
devotion.  It  certainly  seems  to  have  existed  as 
such  in  the  mind  and  heart  of  St.  Paul,  if  we  may 
judge  from  the  evident  fondness  with  which  ho 
dwells  upon  it  in  his  epistles,  with  reiterations 
made  on  purpose,  as  if  they  wore  grateful  to  ins 
love.     We  may  call  him  the  doctor  of  the  Preciuua 


THE    DEVOTION    TO    THE    mECIOUS    BLOOD.       327 

Blood,  and  the  author  of  the  special  devotion  to  it. 
It  was  in  this  devotion  that  the  strength  of  his 
apostolic  instinct  lay.  It  was  the  natural  fruit  of 
the  peculiar  magnificence  of  his  conversion  and 
vocation.  Among  the  Fathers  we  have  St.  Chrysos- 
tom  in  the  East  and  St.  Austin  in  the  West,  who 
may  he  regarded  as  striking  examples  of  a  special 
devotion  to  the  Precious  Blood.  The  zeal  for 
souls,  which  burned  in  St.  Chrysostom,  and  the 
enthusiasm  for  the  liberalities  of  redeeming  grace, 
which  was  quite  a  passion  with  St.  Austin,  explain 
the  prominence  of  this  devotion  in  their  writings. 
Among  the  saints,  St.  Gertrude's  revelations  are 
full  of  the  sweetest  and  deepest  things  about  the 
Precious  Blood.  But  the  devotion  seems  to  take 
its  modern  form  and  consistence  chiefly  in  St. 
Catherine  of  Siena,  whom  we  may  justly  term  the 
Prophetess  of  the  Precious  Blood.*  She  has  singled 
out  this  devotion  with  a  more  obvious  predilection; 
and  she  has  singled  it  out  as  a  remedy  needful  for 
her  times,  and  one  upon  which,  in  her  judgment, 
sufficient  stress  had  not  been  laid.  We  read  of 
Osanna  of  Mantua,  that,  so  vehement  was  her 
devotion  to  the  Precious  Blood,  she  could  never 
see  any  human  blood  without  at  once  going  into 
an  ecstasy.  Coupled  with  her  singular  devotion  to 
the  Person  of  the  Eternal  Word,  St.  Mary  Magda- 

*  It  should  be  remembered  row  that  it  once  p'easel  God  to 
save  Italy  by  means  of  St.  Catherine  of  Siena,  and  to  restore 
the  Pope  to  Rome.  By  an  increased  devotion  to  the  great 
I>o:ninicaness  may  we  not  help  the  llo^y  See,  and  the  poor  land 
which  does  not  know  its  own  blessedness  in  possessing  the 
Chair  of  Peter  and  the  Holy  City  ? 


328        THE   DEVOTION    TO    THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

lcne  of  Pazzi  had  also  a  special  devotion  to  the 
Precious  Blood. 

The  lives  of  the  saints  arc  of  course  replete  with 
instances  of  devotion  to  the  Precious  Blood;  and 
it  would  be  impossible  to  enumerate  them  all. 
Let  it  suffice  to  give  some  specimens.  The  Vene- 
rable Maria  Francesca  of  the  Five  Wounds,  an 
Alcantarine  nun  at  Naples,  was  communicated  by 
St.  Baphael  out  of  the  chalice,  .the  priest  missing 
it  at  the  time  of  mass,  and  observing  a  diminution 
in  the  Sacred  Bloocl.  We  can  hardly  doubt  that 
this  grace  was  an  answer  to  an  intense  desire,  and 
a  reward  for  a  special  devotion  to  the  Precious 
Blood.*  In  that  amazing  and  delightful  repertory 
of  spiritual  science,  the  Chronicles  of  the  French 
Carmelites,  we  read  of  Frances  of  the  Mother  of 
God,  that  one  day  before  Communion  those  words 
of  the  Apocalypse  were  deeply  imprinted  on  her 
mind: — He  hath  loved  us  and  washed  away  our 
sins  in  his  Blood.  Presently  our  Lord  said  to  her 
interiorly,  I  have  shed  m}^  Blood  for  your  sins, 
and  now  I  come  in  Holy  Communion  to  wash  away 
the  stains  which  remain.  When  she  had  received 
our  Lord,  she  saw  her  soul  all  covered  with  Blood.j" 
In  the  life  of  the  Venerable  Anne  of  Jesus,  the 
companion  of  St.  Teresa,  we  read  that  once  in  com- 
municating she  had  her  mouth  sensibly  filled  with 
very  sweet  Blood,  which  flowed  from  the  Host; 
and  another  time  she  had  a  vision  of  the  joy  which 
an  infinite  number  of  blessed  souls  have  in  that 
Blood  in  heaven. |     Marcello  Benci  often  when  he 

*  Vita,  p.  155. 

f  Chroniques,  ii.  595-59G.  %  Vie,  pp.  512-513. 


THE    DEVOTION    TO   THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.        329 

served  St.  Philip's  mass,  saw  after  consecration 
the  chalice  lull  of  Blood.*  Margaret  of  Beaunc, 
the  Carmelitess,  is  well  known  in  the  Church  for 
the  new  devotions  to  the  Infant  Jesus  with  which 
she  enriched  it.  Patrignani,  in  his  life  of  her,  tells 
us  that  she  so  habitually  saw  the  Blood  of  Jesus 
in  the  souls  of  men,  and  saw  them  so  beautified  hy 
it,  that  she  could  not  bear  to  hear  any  one  blamed, 
however  justly;  because  of  the  reverence  she  felt 
for  wicked  souls  through  the  Blood  of  Jesus  which 
she  beheld  in  them.f  When  Margaret  of  the  Pas- 
sion, Carmelitess  at  Rouen,  was  on  her  death-bed, 
she  said  that  the  Blood  of  Jesus  had  been  applied 
to  her,  and  that  it  had  caused  her  a  light  and  brief 
pain,  while  it  had  filled  her  soul  with  God,  and 
infused  into  her  a  profound  peace,  and  had  par- 
doned all  her  sins. J  But  it  is  useless  to  multiply 
instances. 

Another  development  of  the  devotion  to  the 
Precious  Blood  has  arisen  from  the  possession  of 
relics,  whether  of  what  was  once  Precious  Blood 
or  of  miraculous  Blood.  These  have  been  the 
object,  not  only  of  a  local  worship,  but  of  devout 
pilgrimages,  which  have  often  led  to  signal  con- 
versions of  sinners.  Beyrout,  Bruges,  Saintes, 
Mantua,  the  imperial  monastery  of  Weingarten, 
which  claimed  to  possess  the  portion  of  the  Blood 
of  Mantua  which  had  been  given  to  the  Emperor 
Henry  the  Third,  and  the  English  monasteries  of 
Ashridge  and  Hailes,  may  be  quoted  as  instances 
of  this  kind  of  devotion.§ 

*  Bacci,  Vita  di  Filippo  Neri,  p.  82. 

f  Vita,  p.  99.  X  Chronique?,  ii.  417 

§  Sco  Ilaag  Sanguis  Christi  in  terra  vindicatus,  1758. 

28* 


330      THE   DEVOTION    TO    THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

There  is  no  surer  sign  of  the  growth  of  u  special 
devotion  in  the  Church  than  the  erection  of  a  Cor- 
fraternity,  representing  and  embodying  it.  Theie 
was  an  ancient  confraternity  of  the  Precious  Blood 
at  Ravenna.  Another  was  erected  in  Rome  in 
the  Pontificate  of  Gregory  XIII.  which  was  con- 
firmed by  Sixtus  V.  Jt  was  afterward  merged  in 
the  confraternity  of  the  Gonfalone.  Its  members 
were  priests,  and  took  upon  themselves  the  obliga- 
tion of  preaching  missions.  Put  the  pontificate  of 
Pius  VII.  was  the  great  epoch  in  the  history  of 
Lhis  devotion.  An  archconfraternity  of  the  Pre- 
cious Blood  was  set  up  at  Rome  in  the  Church 
of  San  Nicola  in  Carcere  by  Albertini,  Bishop  of 
Terracina,  Bonanni,  Bishop  of  Norcia,  and  Gas-^ 
pare  del  Bufalo,  Canon  of  San  Marco.  The  pope 
enriched  this  confraternity,  and  also  the  devotion 
independently  of  the  confraternity,  with  great 
indulgences.  He  also  granted  indulgences  to  the 
Passionists  and  to  the  Missionaries  of  the  Precious 
Blood,  in  favor  of  this  devotion.  The  Congrega- 
tion of  the  Missioners  of  the  Precious  Blood  was 
founded  in  the  same  pontificate  lyr  Gaspare  del 
Bufalo,  who  was  likewise  the  founder  of  a  congre- 
gation of  religious  women  devoted  to  the  worship 
of  the  Precious  Blood.  He  died  at  Rome  in  the 
odor  of  sanctity  on  the  28th  of  December,  1837. 
Jt  was  in  the  church  of  his  Missionaries  of  the 
Precious  Blood  at  Rimini,  that  the  miraculous 
appearances  took  place  a  few  years  ago,  in  con- 
nection with  a  picture  of  our  Lady;  and  this 
fact  is  probably  not  without  some  supernatural 
significance  regarding  the  devotion  to  the  Pre- 
ikms  Blood. 


THE    DEVOTION    TO    THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.      331 

I  have  not  been  able  to  trace  satisfactorily  the 
rise  of  confraternities  of  the  Precious  Blood.  But 
their  existence  m^4inin.  seems  to  betoken  some 
special  devotion  to  the  Precious  Blood  in  that 
country,  which  has  been  the  nursery  of  so  many 
grandeurs  of  the  faith,  and  which  the  super- 
natural has  so  often  chosen  with  a  kind  of  predi- 
lection as  the  theatre  of  its  manifestations,  as  if  it 
were  a  kind  of  "Western  Palestine  shutting  up  the 
end  of  the  Mediterranean,  to  pass  the  faith  across 
the  broad  Atlantic.  In  the  life  of  Anne  of  St. 
Augustine,  the  Carmelitess,  it  is  said  that  she 
always  received  with  hospitality  those  who  went 
about  collecting  alms  for  the  confraternities  of  the 
Precious  Blood,  which  are  spoken  of  as  having 
been  "erected  in  many  places."  She  died  in 
1G24.*  In  the  life  of  Brother  Francis  of  the 
Infant  Jesus,  a  Carmelite  lay-brother,  mention  is 
made  of  a  confraternity  of  the  Precious  Blood 
in  the  street  of  St.  Vincent  at  Valentiaj'n  1601. f 
But  1  have  not  been  able  to  find  any  account 
of  these  confraternities.  These  scattered  notices 
suffice  to  show  that  it  was  a  popular  Spanish 
devotion. 

Among  the  reforms  of  the  Cistcrcianesses,  there 
arose  a  Congregation  of  Divine  Providence,  with 
which  St.  Francis  of  Sales  had  to  do,  as  it  was 
founded  with  his  assistance,  and  by  the  Mother 
de  Ballon,  a  near  relation  of  his.  Out  of  thi<, 
Congregation,  and  under  the  auspices  of  the 
Mother  de  Ponconas,  sprang  another  Congrega- 
tion, entitled  Bernardines  of  the  Precious  Blood, 

*  Vita,  p.  146.  f  Vita,  p.  32G. 


332      THE   DEVOTION    TO   THE   TRECIOCS    BLOOD. 

which  reached  its  full  development  in  Paris  ic 
1054.  The  strife  between  the  Mothers  de  Ballon 
and  de  Ponconas  occupies  perhaps  the  least  edify- 
ing chapter  of  monastic  history,  and  it  is  only 
alluded  to  here  because  of  its  connection  with  the 
history  of  the  devotion  to  the  Precious  Blood. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
Vincent  of  Gonzaga,  Duke  of  Mantua,  founded 
a  military  order  of  Redemptorists  of  the  Precious 
Blood,  in  order  to  guard  the  relic  of  the  Precious 
Blood  in  the  cathedral  of  St.  Andrew  at  Mantua. 
Our  own  England  was  not  without  its  place  in  the 
history  of  this  devotion.  Richard  of  Cornwall, 
brother  of  Henry  the  Third,  brought  from  Ger- 
many a  large  relic  of  the  Precious  Blood,  and 
founded  a  Congregation  entitled  the  Con<ire<ratioia 
of  Good-Men,  (Bonhommes,)  in  order  to  keep,  to 
watch,  and  to  honor  this  relic.  He  placed  two- 
thirds  of  it  in  a  monastery  which  he  built  at  Ash- 
ridge  near  Berkhampstead,  in  Buckinghamshire, 
and  the  other  third  in  a  similar  monastery  at 
Hailes,  in  Gloucestershire.  The  Bonhommes  had 
the  reputation  of  being  great  mystics.  They  lived 
under  the  rule  of  St.  Auo-ustin.* 

*  See  Helyot,  Hist,  des  Ordrcs  llelig.  under  the  word3 
Divine  Providence,  Precieux  Sang,  and  Itddempteurs  :  Mori- 
gia,  Istoria  di  tutte  le  Religioni,  lib.  1,  cap.  lx. :  and  Dugdale's 
Monasticon,  under  Ashridge.  Morigia  gives  the  date  of 
Richard  of  Cornwall's  foundation  as  1257 ;  Tanner  dates  it 
in  1283;  Mr.  Todd,  who  wrote  the  privately-printed  history 
of  Ashridge  for  Lord  Bridgewater,  dates  Richard,  the  first 
rector,  from  1276.  Thomas  Waterhi  use,  the  last  rector,  sur- 
rendered the  house  to  Henry  the  Eighth.  The  seal  repre- 
sented the  Agnus  Dei  with  the  Earl  of  Cornwall's  lion 
bcucath  it. 


THE    DEVOTION    TO    THE    I'llECIOUS    BLOOD.      333 

Leo  XII.  enriched  this  devotion  with  indul- 
gences. But  the  present  pontificate  of  Pins  IX. 
has  been  another  grand  epoch  in  the  history  of 
this  devotion,  similar  to  that  of  Pius  VII.  In  this 
pontificate  the  red  scapular  of  the  Vincentians  has 
been  instituted,  in  consequence,  it  is  said,  of  some 
private  revelation;  and  it  has  been  indulgenced 
by  the  Sovereign  Pontiff.  The  confraternity  of 
the  Precious  Blood  has  been  enriched  with  still 
further  indulgences;  and  similar  confraternities 
have  been  multiplied.  One — it  is  believed  the 
first  in  England  since  those  of  Richard  of  Cornwall 
in  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century — was 
established  in  the  Church  of  St.  Wilfrid  among 
the  Staffordshire  hills  in  1847,  with  the  approval 
of  the  bishop,  and  had  a  great  success.  It  was 
afterward  transferred  to  the  church  of  the  London 
Oratory,  and  was  re-erected  by  a  papal  rescript, 
August  12,  1850.  In  this  confraternity  more  than 
thirty-eight  thousand  members  have  been  en- 
rolled, and  one  hundred  and  four  religious  com- 
munities; and  the  numbers  are  increasing  daily. 
Besides  this,  there  are  several  other  local  confra- 
ternities affiliated  with  it ;  and  others  which  have 
been  independently  erected  at  a  subsequent  date, 
both  in  England  and  Ireland. 

There  was  already  a  commemorative  feast  of 
the  Precious  Blood  in  Lent.  But  when  Pius  IX. 
returned  to  the  Holy  City  from  his  exile  at  Gaeta, 
he  issued  a  decree  to  the  whole  world,  instituting 
a  new  least  of  the  Precious  Blood  on  the  first 
Sunday  of  July.  There  is  surely  a  great  signi- 
ficance in  this  decree.  The  Holy  See  has  taken 
the  lead  in  this  special  devotion,  and  has  thereby 


ooi      THE    DEVOTION    TO    THE    TRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

immensely  increased  its  popularity,  the  usual 
result  of  authority.  Moreover,  the  selection  of 
the  devotion  is  of  still  greater  significance.  The 
latest  new  devotion  of  the  Church  was  the  devo- 
tion to  the  Sacred  Heart.  The  choice  has  fallen 
next  upon  the  Precious  Blood,  which  is  as  it  were 
a  development  of  the  devotion  to  the  Sacred 
Heart.  So  that  there  is  a  sort  of  historical  or 
chronological  fitness  in  it.  It  seems  part  of 
catholic  piety  to  believe  that,  while  these  things 
are  by  no  means  supposed  to  lie  within  the  gift 
of  infallibility,  there  is  a  peculiar  guidance  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  in  them.  It  is  he  who  as  it  were 
writes  the  history  of  the  Church.  It  is  to  his 
instincts  that  we  reverently  refer  all  movements 
which  have  to  do  with  the  spiritual  life  and  devo- 
tion of  the  faithful,  and  also  the  choice  of  the 
times  at  which  these  movements  are  made.  Such 
movements  are  parts  of  a  whole,  steps  toward  an 
cud  ;  hut  the  whole'  and  the  end  only  become  visi- 
ble to  us  when  they  have  grown  a  portion  of  past 
history.  They  mean  much  more  than  we  see,  or 
than  can  be  comprehended  by  one  generation.  The 
circumstances,  under  which  this  decree  of  a  new 
least  of  the  Precious  Blood  was  issued,  stamp  upon 
the  feast  the  same  character  of  thanksgiving  which 
belongs  to  the  feast  of  the  Help  of  Christians.  It 
is  an  historical  monument  of  a  vicissitude  of  tho 
Holy  See,  a  perpetual  Te  Deum  for  a  deliverance 
of  the  Vicar  of  Christ. 

All  devotions  have  their  characteristics;  all  of 
them  have  their  own  theological  meanings.  We 
must  say  something,  therefore,  xipon  the  character- 
istics of  the  devotion  to  the  Precious  Blood.     In 


THE    DEVOTION    TO   THE   TRECIOUS    BLOOD.      CC5 

reality  the  whole  Treatise  lus  more  or  less  illus- 
trated this  matter.  But  something  still  remains 
to  be  said,  and  something  will  bear  to  be  repeated. 
We  will  take  the  last  first.  Devotion  to  the  Pre- 
eious  Blood  is  the  devotional  expression  of  the 
prominent  and  characteristic  teaching  of  St.  Paul. 
St.  Paul  is  the  apostle  of  redeeming  grace.  A  de- 
vout study  of  bis  epistles  would  be  our  deliverance 
from  most  of  the  errors  of  the  day.  He  is  truly 
the  apostle  of  all  ages.  To  each  age  doubtless  be 
seems  to  have  a  special  mission.  Certainly  bis 
mission  to  ours  is  very  special.  The  very  air  we 
breathe  is  Pelagian.  Our  heresies  are  only  novel 
shapes  of  an  old  Pelagianism.  Tbe__sp-irit  of  the 
V£DxliLis  eminentl}'  Pelagian.  Hence  it  comes  to 
pass  that  wrong  theories  among  us  are  always 
constructed  round  a  nucleus  of  Pelagianism;  and 
Pelagianism  is  just  the  heresy  which  is  least  able 
to  breathe  in  the  atmosphere  of  St.  Paul.  It  is 
tbejigeof  the  natural  as  opposed  to  the  super- 
natural, of  the  acquired  as  opposed  to  the  infused, 
of  the  active  as  opposed  to  the  passive.  This  is 
what  I  said  in  an  earlier  chapter,  and  here  repeat. 
Now,  this  exclusive  fondness  for  the  natural  is 
on  the  whole  very  captivating.  It  takes  with  the 
young,  because  it  saves  thought.  It  does  not 
explain  difficulties;  but  it  lessens  the  number  of 
difficulties  to  be  explained.  It  takes  with  the 
idle;  for  it  dispenses  from  slowness  and  research. 
It  takes  with  the  unimaginative,  because  it  with- 
draws just  the  very  element  in  religion  which 
teases  them.  It  takes  with  the  worldly,  because 
it  subtracts  the  enthusiasm  from  piety  and  the 
sacrifice    from    spirituality.      It    takes    with    the 


336      THE    DEVOTION    TO   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

controversial^  because  it  is  a  short  road  and  a 
Bhallow  ford.  It  forms  a  school  of  thought  winch, 
while  it  admits  that  we  have  abundance  of  grace, 
intimates  that  we  arc  not  much  the  better  for  it. 
It  merge?  privileges  in  responsibilities,  and  makes 
the  sovereignty  of  God  odious  by  representing  it 
as  insidious.  All  this  whole  spirit,  with  all  its 
ramifications,  perishes  in  the  sweet  fires  of  devo- 
tion to  the  Precious  Blood. 

The  time  is  also  one  of  libertinagej  and  a  time 
of  libertinage  is  always,  with  a  kind  of  practical 
logic,  one  of  infidelity.  Whatever  brings  out 
God's  side  in  creation,  and  magnifies  his  inces- 
sant supernatural  operation  in  it,  is  the  contro- 
versy which  infidelity  can  least  withstand.  Now, 
the  devotion  to  the  Precious  Blood  does  this  in 
a  very  remarkable  way.  It  shows  that  the  true 
significance  of  every  thing  is  to  be  found  in  the 
scheme  of  redemption,  apart  from  which  it  is  use- 
less to  discuss  the  problems  of  creation.  It  is  a 
revelation  to  us  of  the  character  of  Clod  as  well  as 
of  the  work  of  Jesus.  By  bringing  out  the  won- 
ders of  the  Church  and  the  energies  of  the  Sacra- 
ments, it  insinuates  into  our  hearts  the  love  of  the 
sovereignty  of  God,  together  with  a  sense  of  per- 
fect freedom  and  enlargement.  By  drawing  out 
into  strong  lights  the  most  intimate  human  reali- 
ties of  the  Incarnation,  it  meets  the  false  spirit- 
uality, which  sometimes  runs  into  heresy,  about 
the  Sacred  Humanity.  More  especially  docs  it 
war  against  that  dangerous  fastidiousness  which 
even  believers  sometimes  feel,  through  want  of 
reverential  discipline  of  mind, "about  the  physical 
masteries  of  Jesus,  especially  those  of  his  Passion. 


THE   DEVOTION   TO   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD.      337 

Tin's  fastidiousness  is  a  deep  source  of  widely- 
spreading  evil.  It  makes  us  ungenuino  and  pro- 
lime.  Reverence  contemplates  divine  things,  and 
does  not  divert  its  thoughts  from  the  physical 
horrors  in  which,  because  of  our  sins,  those  divine 
things  have  deigned  to  manifest  themselves. 
Magdaleu  holds  Jesus  b}T  his  feet,  while  the  Gera- 
sens  entreat  him  to  depart  from  their  vicinity. 
We  lose  much  which  we  cannot  afford  to  lose,  by 
any  thing  which  makes  our  devotion  to  the  Pas- 
sion less  faithful  and  less  real. 

Another  characteristic  of  the  devotion  to  the 
Precious  Blood  is  the  way  in  which  it  brings  out 
and  keeps  before  us  the  principle  of  sacrifice. 
Sacrifice  is  peculiarly  the  Christian  element  of 
holiness;  and  it  is  precisely  the  element  which 
corrupt  nature  dislikes  and  resists.  There  is  no 
end  to  the  delusions  which  our  self-love  is  fertile 
enough  to  brinic  forth  in  order  to  evade  the  obli- 
gation  of  sacrifice,  or  to  narrow  its  practical  appli- 
cation. If  it  were  enough  to  have  correct  views, 
or  high  feelings,  or  devout  aspirations,  it  would  be 
easy  to  be  spiritual.  The  touchstone  is  mortifica- 
tion. Worldly  amusements,  domestic  comforts, 
nice  food,  and  a  daily  doing  our  own  will  in  the 
lesser  details  of  life,  are  all  incompatible  with 
sanctify,  when  they  arc  habitual  and  form  the 
ordinary  normal  current  of  our  lives.  Pain  is 
necessary  to  holiness.  Suffering  is  essential  to  the 
killing  of  self-love.  Habits  of  virtue  cannot  by 
any  possibility  be  formed  without  voluntary  mor- 
tification. Sorrow  is  needful  for  the  fertility  of 
grace.  If  a  man  is  not  making  constant  sacrifices, 
he  is  deceiving  himself,  and  is  not  advancing  in 

W  29 


338      THE    DEVOTION    TO    TIIE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

spirituality.  If  a  man  is  not  denying  himself 
daily,  be  is  not  carrying  the  cross.  These  are 
axioms  which  at  all  times  offend  our  weakness 
and  self-indulgence.  But  they  are  of  peculiar  im- 
portance in  times  like  these,  when  comforts  and 
even  luxuries  are  almost  universal.  It  is  comfort 
which  is  the  ruin  of  holiness.  Gayety,  fashion, 
ostentation,  expensivencss,  dissipation,  frivolity, 
and  the  other  things  which  make  up  a  London 
season,  are  undoubtedly  not  the  component  parts 
of  sanctity.  But  in  my  estimation  they  are  far 
less  worldly,  have  far  less  of  the  poison  of  world- 
liness  in  them,  than  the  daily  worship  of  comfort 
which  distinguishes  the  great  bulk  of  quiet  people 
in  these  days.  Many  are  not  attracted  by  balls, 
parties,  and  similar  fashions  of  amusement,  and 
therefore  have  no  merit  in  keeping  away  from 
them.  But  these  same  persons  may  set  a  great 
value  upon  the  uninterrupted  course  of  their  daily 
comforts.  They  rise  when  they  will,  and  gather 
every  convenience  round  their  rising.  Their  meals 
must  be  elegant,  and  pleasant,  and  faultless.  Their 
servant-machinery  must  go  smoothly,  anticipating 
wants  and  keeping  out  of  sight  annoyances.  Their 
time  must  be  for  the  most  part  at  their  own  dis- 
posal. They  must  have  the  pastime  of  amusing 
conversation  and  of  social  intercourse;  and  they 
must  be  able  to  satisfy  their  restlessness,  when  they 
please,  by  change  of  air  and  scene  and  company. 
There  is  generally  a  far  greater  intensity  of  world- 
lincss  in  all  this  than  in  the  pleasure-hunting 
riot  of  a  London  season.  Thus  we  often  find,  in 
connection  with  this  last,  great  graces,  generous 
sacrifices,  unexpected  mortifications,  and  unkilied 


TIIK    DEVOTION    TO   THE   TRECIOUS   BLOOD.         339 

heavenly  longings.  But  these  are  hardly  ever 
found  in  the  quiet  unobtrusive  worship  of  domestic 
comfort.  Yearly  out  of  the  dissipations  of  the 
great  world  come  grand  vocations.  Every  London 
season  inscribes  against  its  will  some  few  glorious 
conversions  in  the  annals  of  grace,  conversions 
whose  peculiar  glory  is  the  frankness  of  their 
generosity.  Nothing  grand  ever  comes  out  of  the 
daily  round  of  comfort.  The  heroic  things  of 
Christian  attainment  have  less  chance  in  quiet 
gardens  and  by  pleasant  river-sides  than  in  the 
ball-room  or  the  court.  There  is  a  smoothness  in 
the  mere  lapse  of  a  comfortable  life  which  is  fatal 
to  holiness.  Now,  all  the  forms,  and  images,  and 
associations,  and  pictures,  and  ideas,  of  the  devo- 
tion to  the  Precious  Blood  breathe  sacrifice.  Their 
fragrance  is  the  odor  of  sacrifice.  Their  beauty 
is  the  austerit}r  of  sacrifice.  They  tease  the  soul 
with  a  constant  sense  of  dissatisfaction  and  distrust 
with  whatsoever  is  not  sacrifice;  and  this  teasing  is 
the  solicitation  of  grace.  In  time  they  infect  us 
with  a  love  of  sacrifice;  and  to  gain  this  love  of 
sacrifice  is  to  have  surmounted  the  first  ascent  of 
holiness,  and  to  be  breathing  the  pure  air  and  yet 
treading  the  more  level  road  of  the  upper  table-land 
of  the  mountains  of  perfection.  It  is  the  very  mis- 
sion of  the  devotion  to  the  Precious  Blood  to  preach 
a  crusade  against  quiet  sinless  comforts.  The  Mass 
is  the  compendium  of  the  Gospel.  It  is  a  heresy  in 
doctrine  to  acknowledge  the  Sacrament  and  to  deny 
theSacrifice.  Worldliness  is  guilty  of  asimilar  prac- 
tical heresy  with  regard  to  holiness.  It  admits  the 
claims  of  all  its  obligations  but  one ;  and  that  is  the 
obligation  of  sacrifice. 


340      THE   DEVOTION    TO   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

It  is  another  characteristic  of  the  devotion  to 
the  Precious  Blood  that  it  does  not  usurp  the  place 
of  other  devotions,  but  by  its  own  growth  makes 
more  room  for  them.  We  cannot  have  an  equai 
devotion  for  all  the  things  to  which  we  ought  1o 
be  devout.  We  have  not  breadth  enough  for  it. 
We  are  obliged  to  take  things  in  detail.  Calvary 
on  the  wlole  turns  our  thoughts  from  Bethlehem, 
and  Bethlehem  on  the  whole  turns  our  thoughts 
from  Calvary.  One  mystery  comes  in  the  way  of 
another.  Devotions  stand  in  each  other's  light. 
There  is  no  harm  in  this.  It  is  a  blameless  imper- 
fection. But  it  is  a  peculiarity  of  the  devotion  to 
the  Precious  Blood  that  it  does  not  interfere  with 
other  devotions.  On  the  contrary,  it  rather  fosters 
them.  For  it  is  not  only  a  devotion  by  itself, 
separate  from  other  devotions,  and  with  a  spirit 
of  its  own,  but  it  is  also  a  part  of  other  devotions, 
a  particular  form  of  other  devotions,  a  shape  which 
many  other  devotions  may  assume.  It  mingles 
in  the  most  natural  way  with  devotion  to  our 
Blessed  Lady.  It  is  an  additional  splendor  to 
every  one  of  her  mysteries.  It  throws  light  upon 
them.  It  brings  her  into  the  mysteries  of  Jesus. 
It  has,  as  we  shall  see  afterward,  a  peculiar  con- 
nection with  the  Immaculate  Conception.  It  forms 
in  itself  a  separate  devotion  to  ourdoarest  Mother, 
as  the  fountain  of  the  Precious  Blood,  a  devotion 
of  the  most  inexpressible  tenderness,  a  devotion  to 
her  immaculate  heart  and  sinless  blood. 

It  is  also  a  variety  of  devotion  to  the  Passion. 
It  furnishes  a  point  of  view  from  which  we  may 
regard  each  separate  mystery,  while  it  is  also  a 
mould  in  which  we  can   fuse  all  the  mysteries  of 


THE   DEVOTION    TO   THE   TRLCIOUS   BLOOD.      341 

the  Passion  into  one.  It  is  thus  a  unity  of  tho 
devotion  to  the  Passion  as  well  as  a  variety  of  it, 
besides  being  in  itself  an  additional  devotion  to 
the  Passion.  When  we  wish  to  range  t lie  whole 
Passion  into  one  view,  we  find  that  simply  to  look 
upon  it  as  the  single  mystery  of  the  Passion,  it  is 
too  large  tor  us,  and  becomes  vague.  Now,  vague- 
ness is  precisely  what  we  must  try  to  avoid  in 
devotion  to  the  Passion.  Its  virtue  resides  in  its 
vividness.  Unless  it  he  vivid,  it  will  not  he  true; 
and  unless  it  he  true,  it  will  not  he  reverent. 
Thus  we  have  various  devices  by  which  we  make 
the  Passion  into  one  mystery  and  yet  preserve  its 
details.  We  take  the  five  trials  of  our  Lord,  or 
the  seven  journeys,  or  the  seven  words,  or  the 
five  wounds.  All  these  are  excellent  contrivances 
of  love.  Put  the  Precious  Blood  supplies  us  with 
a  more  natural  unity  and  also  with  a  more  vivid 
detail. 

We  may  say  the  same  of  devotion  to  Jesus 
Piscn.  It  is  a  devotion  which  we  cultivate  by 
separate  meditation  on  the  beautiful  apparitions 
of  those  Forty  Days.  It  is  a  devotion .  out  of 
which  we  draw  bright  thoughts  of  God,  the  sun- 
niest views  of  his  adorable  sovereignty,  heavenly 
yearnings,  a  more  reverential  and  amazed  devotion 
to  our  Lad}',  an  increased  zeal  for  souls,  and  all 
that  ministers  to  the  alacrity  of  holiness.  Alacrity 
is  the  characteristic  of  this  devotion.  Put,  when 
we  desire  to  make  a  unity  of  this  devotion  to  Jesus 
Risen,  we  find  it  either  in  devotion  to  the  Soul  of 
our  Blessed  Savior,  or  to  his  Precious  Blood. 

Devotion  to  the  Precious  Blood  also  supplies  us 
with  an  additional  form  of  devotion  to  the  Blessed 

2'J* 


342      THE    DEVOTION    TO   THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

Sacrament.  The  devotion  to  the  Precious  Blood 
in  the  chalice  may  be  considered  not  merely  as  an 
additional  form  of  devotion,  but  as  an  additional 
devotion,  to  the  Blessed  Sacrament;  while  the 
special  adoration  of  the  Precious  Blood,  when  we 
are  kneeling  before  the  tabernacle,  is  a  form  of 
devotion  bringing  much  doctrine  before  us,  and 
enabling  us  better  to  comprehend  the  august 
realities  of  that  tremendous  Sacrament. 

But  the  closest  alliance  of  the  devotion  to  the 
Precious  Blood  is  with  the  devotion  to  the  Sacred 
Heart.  The  Precious  Blood  is  the  wealth  of  the 
Sacred  Heart.  The  Sacred  Heart  is  the  symbol 
of  the  Precious  Blood;  yet  not  its  symbol  only, 
but  its  palace,  its  home,  its  fountain.  It  is  to  the 
Sacred  Heart  that  it  owes  the  j'03*  of  its  restless- 
ness and  the  glory  of  its  impetuosity.  It  is  to  the 
Sacred  Heart  that  it  returns  with  momentaiy 
swiftness,  and  assails  it,  as  a  child  assails  his  mother 
for  fresh  powers,  for  new  vigor,  and  for  the  con 
tinuance  of  its  unwearied  impulses.  The  devotion 
to  the  Precious  Blood  is  the  devotion  which  unveils 
the  physical  realities  of  the  Sacred  Heart.  The 
devotion  to  the  Sacred  Heart  is  the  figurative  ex- 
pression of  the  qualities,  dispositions,  and  genius 
of  the  Precious  Blood, — only  that  the  figure  is  itself 
a  living  and  adorable  reality.  The  Sacred  Heart 
is  the  Heart  of  our  Eedeemer  :  yet  it  was  not 
the  Sacred  Heart  which  redeemed  us.  It  was 
precisely  the  Precious  Blood,  and  nothing  but  the 
Precious  Blood,  which  was  the  chosen  instrument 
of  our  redemption.  It  is  this  singular  reality,  this 
unmated  office,  this  unshared  privilege,  in  which 
the  grandeur  of  the  Precious  Blood  resides,  a  grand- 


THE   DEVOTION    TO    THE   TRECIOUS    BLOOD.        043 

eur  which  is  also  communicated  to  the  devotion. 
If  it  were  not  for  tins,  the  devotion  to  the  Precious 
Blood  and  the  devotion  to  the  Sacred  Eeart  would 
he  but  one  devotion,  two  aspects  of  the  same  devo- 
tion. The  one  would  honor  the  actual  workings 
of  the  Human  Nature  of  our  dearest  Lord,  while 
the  other  would  magnify  its  inward  dispositions, 
its  hidden  sweetness,  its  tender  characteristics, 
its  profuse  liberalities,  and  its  magnificent  affec- 
tions. One  would  have  to  do  with  operations,  the 
other  with  significances.  One  would  bo  occupied 
with  processes,  the  other  with  consequences.  The 
one  would  be  the  meaning  of  the  other,  and  a 
commentary  upon  the  other.  So  close  is  their 
alliance.  But  the  mysterious  fact  that  the  Blood, 
and  only  the  Blood,  of  Jesus,  was  the  chosen  price 
of  man's  redemption,  and  that  it  was  only  the 
Blood,  and  the  Blood  shed  to  death,  which  did 
actually  redeem  us,  confers  a  distinctive  majesty 
upon  the  Precious  Blood,  in  which  our  Lord's  Body 
and  his  Soul  only  participate  concomitantly. 
Hence,  while  we  commonly  see  that  a  devotion  to 
the  Precious  Blood  and  a  devotion  to  the  Sacred 
Heart  go  together,  we  also  see  occasionally,  and  it 
is  an  exception  to  the  rule  given  above,  that  the 
one  does  stand  in  way  of  the  other,  as  if  it  were 
only  a  different  aspect  of  the  other,  more  congenial 
to  the  spiritual  taste  of  the  worshipper.  But  in 
reality  this  seeming  opposition  is  only  an  evidence 
of  the  closeness  of  their  alliance. 

In  connection  with  this  harmony  of  the  devotion 
to  the  Precious  Blood  with  other  devotions,  we 
should  mention  another  of  its  characteristics, 
which  is  of  much  interest  in  a  devotional  point  of 


344      TIIE   DEVOTION    TO    THE   TRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

view.  This  is  the  way  in  which  it  links  all  tho 
lives  of  Jesus  into  one.  It  does  in  devotion  what 
it  does  also  in  reality.  As  it  pervades  the  whole 
Body  of  our  Lord  and  is  its  life,  so  does  it  mould 
into  one  all  those  lives,  into  which  we  are  accus- 
tomed to  divide  our  Lord's  most  blessed  life,  for 
the  purposes  of  devotion.  Every  thing  about  our 
dearest  Lord  is  so  adorable,  and  at  the  same  time  so 
full  of  manifold  attractions,  that  love  is  compelled 
to  feed  itself  upon  all  the  details  which  it  can  under- 
stand. Thus  the  divisions,  and  subdivisions,  and  the 
divisions  of  the  subdivisions,  which  give  the  theo- 
logy of  devotion  so  technical  an  appearance,  are  in 
reality  so  far  from  being  evidences  of  dryness  that 
they  are  the  very  work  of  the  assiduity  and  faith- 
fulness of  love.  Je>susin  the  "Womb,  and  an  Infant, 
and  a  Boy,  Jesus  in  his  Ministry,  in  his  Passion, 
and  his  Risen  Life,  and  in  his  Ascended  Life,  and 
Jesus  in  his  Sacramental  Concealment,  are  all 
different  lives,  and  yet  the  same.  His  Nine  Months 
in  the  Womb  are  an  epoch  of  the  most  amazing 
mysteries,  the  pleasant  food  of  deep  and  contem- 
plative worship.  His  Infancy  is  not  his  Boyhood, 
nor  his  Boyhood  his  Infancy.  The  Preacher  in 
the  green  fields  is  not  the  Sufferer  upon  Calvary, 
— is  not,  and  yet  also  is.  The  Risen  Jesus  haunt- 
ing the  seclusions  of  his  dear  Galilee  is  not  the 
Ascended  Jesus  whom  the  angels  are  welcoming 
with  triumphal  pomp  in  heaven  upon  his  Session 
at  the  Father's  Right  Hand.  lie  is  not  the  same, 
and  yet  he  is  the  same.  Jesus  in  the  miraculous 
coverts  of  the  deep-enfolding  Sacrament,  hiding 
in  the  profound  recesses  of  the  light  thinness  of 
the  Host,  is  another  Jesus  from  any  of  the  other 


THE    DEVOTION    TO    THE   TltECIOUS   LLO  y J.        34JI 

seven;  and  yet  it  is  the  same  dear  Lord,  so  Avon 
drously  like  himself  in  all  the  transmutations  of 
his  love.  What  interminable  regions  of  delight 
are  there  not  to  traverse  in  these  eight  lives  of  out* 
Blessed  Lord!  !tis  sacred  Humanity  seems  to 
grow  to  the  dimensions  of  his  divine  immensity. 
Any  one  of  these  lives  is  too  big  a  world  for  the 
mightiest  scholar  to  till  with  his  intelligence. 
What  could  St.  Michael  himself  do  with  the  very 
shortest  of  them?  Even  Mary  does  not  fully 
comprehend  the  beauty  of  her  Son,  nor  has  she 
ever  come  to  the  last  depth  of  his  sweetness.  Yet 
we  shall  understand  nothing-  of  these  lives  sepa- 
rately, unless  we  also  realize  them  as  one.  This  is 
the  secret  charm  of  the  Rosary.  It  simplifies 
while  it  divides.  It  is  a  unity,  while  it  is  a  variety 
as  well.  It  parts  our  Lord  in  the  Joys,  the  Sor- 
rows, and  the  Glories  of  his  Mother,  and  five  times 
subdivides  each  of  those  three  divisions;  and  yet 
it  is  all  the  one  Jesus  as  Mary  saw  him,  Mary's 
Jesus,  Mary's  view  of  him,  love  of  him,  and  worship 
of  him,  which  the  complete  Rosary  brings  before 
us.  The  devotion  to  the  Precious  Blood  performs 
the  same  office  differently  to  those  eight  lives;  and  in 
this  function  lies  that  affinity  to  the  Rosary  which 
those  who  practise  it  are  not  slow  to  discover. 
The  Precious  Blood  runs  through  all  those  lives, 
and  is  the  one  human  life  of  all  of  them.  Yet  it 
is  not  a  mere  fanciful  string  upon  which  our  devo- 
tion may  hang  them  for  convenience'  sake,  as  if 
they  were  so  many  beads.  It  is  a  living  unity. 
It  runs  them  into  one,  and  gives  a  special  mean- 
ing and  imparts  a  special  light  to  each.     It  is  the 


346      THE   DEVOTION    TO    THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

one  devotion  to  tho  Precious  Blood   eight  times 
multiplied  by  the  thought  fulness  of  love. 

Its  use  as  a  power  of  intercession  is  another 
characteristic  of  the  devotion  to  the  Precious 
Blood.  It  is  a  special  office  of  our  Saviour's 
Blood  to  plead.  Its  very  existence  is  the  mightiest 
of  prayers.  Its  presence  in  heaven  is  a  power 
which  nothing  but  omnipotence  exceeds.  It  was 
the  power  by  which  God  redeemed  man.  It  is 
the  power  byr  which  man  prevails  with  God.  It 
was  the  oblation  which,  when  actually  offered, 
reconciled  the  offended  Creator  to  his  sinful  crea- 
tures. It  was  the  oblation  the  mere  foresight  of 
which  made  God  overflow  the  world  with  mercies, 
and  the  imitation  of  which,  in  the  blood  of  animals, 
was  once  the  acceptable  religion  of  the  earth.  It 
is  the  oblation,  in  spiritual  union  with  which  all 
Christian  oblations  are  efficacious  now.  It  is  the 
oblation,  the  real  repetition  of  which  upon  the 
altar  is  the  continuance  of  the  world's  right  to  its 
Maker's  forbearance.  In  this  respect,  also,  tho 
devotion  to  the  Precious  Blood  has  a  more  lively 
and  intimate  reality  than  other  devotions.  We 
shall  speak  hereafter  of  the  spirit  of  this  devotion, 
which  we  shall  see  to  be  a  spirit  of  intercession. 
We  are  speaking  of  it  here  as  a  power,  or  instru- 
ment, of  intercession.  Many  revelations  from  the 
other  world  testily  to  the  peculiar  devotion  of  the 
Dead  to  the  Precious  Blood.  Souls  in  Purgatory 
have  been  allowed  to  appear  and  to  tell  how,  in 
their  patient  land  of  woe,  it  is  Blood,  and  only 
Blood,  the  Blood  of  the  Adorable  Mass,  which  can 
quench  the  flames.  The  pictures,  which  represent 
the  angels  holding  chalices  to  the  "Wounded  Side 


THE   DEVOTION    TO   THE   TRECIOUS   BLOOD.      317 

of  Jesus,  while  Mary  prays  beneath,  and  then  pour. 
in;;-  those  chalices  into  the  tires  of  Purgatory, 
simply  represent  this  catholic  truth  as  it  exists  it, 
the  sense  of  the  faithful.  Prayers  for  the  conver- 
sion of  sinners  naturally  seek  their  efficacy  in  tho 
ol'lation  of  the  Precious  Blood.  The  Precious 
Blood  shed  itself  for  their  conversion.  Conver- 
sion is  its  principal  occupation  upon  earth.  It  is  its 
own  work  more  than  it  is  ours.  Used  for  this  pur- 
pose, it  is  something  more  than  intercession:  it  is 
the  doing  of  the  work,  at  once  the  prayer  and  the 
answer  to  the  prayer.  Prayer  for  the  exaltation 
of  the  Church  spontaneously  flies  to  the  Precious 
Blood;  for  the  Church  is  the  peculiar  creation  of 
that  Blood.  Its  own  devotion  is  devotion  to  the 
Church.  It  hastens  therefore  with  promptitude  to 
overwhelm  our  petitions  with  an  unexpected  mag- 
nificence of  fulfilment.  If  we  pray  for  the  extir- 
pation of  heresies,  it  is  the  glory  of  tho  Church 
which  we  are  seeking.  If  we  pray  against  schisms, 
it  is  for  the  peace  of  the  Chui-ch  that  we  are  plead- 
ing. If  we  pray  for  Christian  kings,  it  is  the  free- 
dom of  the  Church  for  which  we  are  interceding. 
If  we  pray  for  the  missions,  it  is  the  fertilitj^  of  the 
Church  upon  which  we  ask  a  blessing.  If  we  pray 
for  the  intentions  of  the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  it  is  the 
sweel  Spirit-guided  will  of  the  Church  which  we 
are  assisting  to  its  accomplishment.  In  all  these 
things  we  are  exercising  devotion  to  the  Church, 
in  which  devotion  the  Precious  Blood  only  waits 
our  invitation  in  order  to  join  us  with  impatient 
love.  Hence  we  may  name  the  devotion  to  the 
Precious  Blood  the  Apostolic  Devotion. 

There  is  yet  another  characteristic,  which  tha 


348      THE    DEVOTION    TO    THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD 

history  of  this  devotion  suggests  to  us,  but  which 
by  no  means  depends  only  upon  the  circumstances 
of  its  history, — its  peculiar  alliance  with  the  Im- 
maculate Conception.  It  is  curious  that  both  these 
devotions  have  received  great  contemporary  de- 
velopments during  the  present  pontificate.  After 
centuries  of  growth,  first  in  popular  piety  and  then 
in  the  schools  of  theology,  the  Immaculate  Con- 
ception has  received  its  crown  in  the  glorious 
definition  of  the  dogma.  This  is  the  grandest 
event  of  the  nineteenth  century.  The  devotion  to 
the  Precious  Blood  has  also  had  its  indulgences 
and  privileges  augmented,  and  a  new  memorial 
feast  instituted  in  its  honor.  The  Pope's  exile  at 
Gaeta  was  sweetened  by  his  Encyclical  in  favor  of 
the  Immaculate  Conception.  His  return  to  Pome 
was  celebrated  by  the  institution  of  the  new  feast 
of  the  Precious  Blood.  The  chief  function  of 
both  these  mysteries  is  to  illustrate  redeeming 
grace.  The}'  both  preach  redemption.  The  Pre- 
cious Blood  was  the  very  instrument  which  re- 
deemed the  world.  The  Immaculate  Conception 
was  the  first,  as  it  is  the  grandest,  victory  of  re- 
demption. Thus  the  Immaculate  Conception  is 
the  highest  and  the  eldest  work  of  the  Precious 
Blood.  But  there  is  more  than  this  in  the  matter. 
There  is  a  sweet  circle  of  cause  and  c fleet ;  now 
the  cause  is  effect,  and  now  the  effect  is  cause 
For  in  the  Immaculate  Conception,  which  was  its 
choicest  work,  the  Precious  Blood  first  took  its 
rise.  The  Immaculate  Conception  was  for  the 
sake  of  the  Precious  Blood.  It  was  for  the  in- 
suring of  its  purity  and  the  protecting  Of  its  honor. 
The  Precious  Blood  raised  up  the  mountains  of  the 


THE   DEVOTION   TO    THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD.        349 

Immaculate  Conception  by  the  subterraneous  heav- 
ings  of  iis  fiery  love,  and  then  flowed  down  from  the 
summits  as  a  sweet  fountain  for  the  gladdening  of 

the  nations.  The  Immaculate  Conception  is  there- 
fore actually  part  of  the  devotion  to  the  Precious 
Blood.  It  is  creation's  richest  offering,  made  by 
the  queen  of  creatures,  who  thus  in  the  jubilee  of 
her  sinless  dawn  crowned  the  Precious  Blood  by 
being  crowned  herself  with  its  choicest  crown. 

It  is  no  wonder,  then,  that  we  find  in  the  two  de- 
votions, the  devotion  to  the  Precious  Blood  and  the 
devotion  to  the  Immaculate  Conception, a  similarity 
of  spirit,  a  similarity  of  gifts,  a  similarity  of  graces. 
But  what  is  the  unshared  distinction  of  the  devotion 
to  the  Precious  Blood?  Has  it  no  solitary  grandeur 
of  its  own?  It  has  one,  winch  is  not  solitary,  but 
which  it  shares  only  with  devotion  to  the  Blessed 
Sacrament.  The  distinctive  privilege  of  the  devo- 
tion to  the  Precious  Blood  is  that  it  has  the  pecu- 
liar union  of  adoration  and  devotion  which  is  the 
spirituality  of  heaven.  But  let  us  look  more 
minutely  into  the  spirit  of  this  devotion,  as  wit- 
nessed by  the  fruits  which  it  produces  in  the  soul. 

First  of  all,  it  breeds  in  us  an  unexhausted  loving 
wonder  of  the  common  things  of  the  faith.  The 
supernatural  is  not  necessarily  the  same  thing  as 
the  wonderful.  A  love  of  the  supernatural  is  a 
higher  thing  than  an  appetite  for  the  wonderful. 
It  is  a  great  grace,  a  mother-grace  containing 
many  graces.  There  are  few  graces  more  to  be 
coveted;  for  many  reasons,  but  for  this  reason 
especially,  that  it  gives  such  fertility  to  the  three 
theological  virtues.  People  are  attracted  by  mira- 
cles, by  prophecies,  by  apparitions,  by  visions,  and 

30 


S50      TITE   DEVOTION   TO    TIIE   TRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

by   strange   heroisms  of  an    inimitable   Sanctity. 
We   ought   to   be   attracted  by  them.     God   puta 
them  out  as  attractions.     lie  meant  them  to  at- 
tract us.     But,  to  the  thoughtful  and  to  the  loving, 
the  common  thin  gs  of  the  faith  areahundred  limes 
more  attractive;  and  for  the  most  part  they  are  in 
themselves  more  wonderful.      Graces  and   inspira- 
tions, services  and  functions,  heads  and  scapulars, 
jubilees  and  indulgences,  the  common  marvels  of 
prayer,  and  the  commonplace  blessings  of  the  Church 
— these  are  what  we  ought  most  to  wonder  at,  most 
to  prize,  and  most  to  love.     What  is  shared  by  the 
greatest  number  of  the  faithful  ought  to  be  more 
dear  to  us  than  what  is  shared  by  few  or  is  singular 
to  ourselves.     Surely  it  is  a  higher  thing  to  be  a 
priest  and  to  participate  in   the  grand  universal 
priesthood  of  the  Church,  than  to  be  a  canon  of  a 
chapter  which    may  wear  a   bishop's    mitre   or  a 
cardinal's   red.     In    religion  what    is    common    is 
better  than  what  is  uncommon,  because  the  com- 
mon is  universal;  and  it  is  his  highest  gifts  which 
God  gives  to  all  men,  and  his  peculiar  gifts  which 
he  gives  to  the  few.     This  is  one  of  God's  ways,  to 
be    observed    and    made    much    of: — his    choicest 
things    are  the    most   universal.     Now,  the   Pre- 
cious Blood  is  the  commonest  of  all  supernatural 
things,  the  most  accessible,  and  the  most  universal. 
It  enters  into  all  the  commonest  things  of  religion 
with  an  unfastidious  ubiquity;  and  the  devotion  to 
it  partakes  of  the   universalit}'  which   belongs  to 
tself.     In   spirituality,  wise  men  value  more  and 
more  each  passing  year  this  esteem  and  love  of  the 
common  things  of  faith. 

Here  is  another  fruit  of  the  spirit  of  this  devo« 


THE    DEVOTION    TO    TFIE    TRECIOUS    BLOOD.        351 

tion  to  the  Precious  Blood.  It  is  easier  to  love 
God  than  to  trust  in  him.  In  human  things  it  is 
nol  easy  to  doubl  and  yet  to  love;  but  in  divine 
thiol's  it  is  not  uncommon.  The  greatest  defect 
in  our  worship  of  God  is  want  of  confidence  in 
him.  Confidence  is  the  genuineness  of  worship, 
and  the  tranquil  plenitude  of  love.  What  can 
give  us  more  confidence  in  God  than  the  study  of 
the  Precious  Blood  ?  Who  can  doubt  Jesus,  when 
he  bleeds'/  Whether  we  look  at  the  grandeurs  of 
the  Precious  Blood,  or  its  liberalities,  or  its  tender- 
nesses, or  its  peculiarities,  the  result  of  our  con- 
templations is  a  steadfast  childlike  confidence  in 
God.  Out  of  this  comes  generosity  with  God,  that 
other  of  our  great  wants,  which  we  are  always 
mourning  over  and  never  taking  the  pains  to 
supply.  It  is  more  easy  to  be  generous  when  we 
have  come  thoroughly  to  trust  the  object  of  our 
love.  Moreover,  we  catch  generosity,  by  a  kind 
of  infection,  from  the  prodigality  of  the  Precious 
Blood.  We  can  hardly  live  in  fire,  and  not  grow 
hot  ourselves.  The  excess  of  love  betrays  itself  in 
unconscious  imitation.  We  shall  do  great  tilings 
for  God,  if  we  are  conversant  all  day  with  the 
great  things  which  God  has  done  for  us. 

Another  gift  of  this  devotion  is  a  vehement  and 
intelligent  hatred  of  sin.  It  is  useless  for  the 
hatred  to  be  intelligent  unless  it  be  also  vehement, 
and  worse  than  useless  for  it  to  be  vehement  unless 
it  be  intelligent  as  well.  In  these  days  what  our 
loyalty  to  God  most  needs  is  sternness  to  the  dis- 
loyal. This  should  be  shown  first  and  foremost  to 
ourselves.  Whom  do  we  know7  to  bo  so  disloyal  as 
ourselves?     What  resistance  to  grace,  wdiat  con- 


THE   DEVOTION    TO    THE   TRECIOUS   BLOOD 

tempt  of  warnings,  what  neglect  of  inspirations,  what 

slovenliness  of  performance,  make  up  our  lives  !  It 
we  luited  sin,  us  we  ought  to  hate  it,  purely,  keenly, 
manfuliy,  we  should  do  more  penance,  we  should  in 
diet  more  self-punishment,  we  should  sorrow  for  our 
sins  more  abidingly.  Then,  again,  the  crowning  dis- 
loyalty to  God  is  heresy.  It  is  the  sin  of  sins,  the 
very  loathsomest  of  things  which  God  looks  down 
upon  in  this  malignant  world.  Yet  how  little  do  we 
understand  of  its  excessive  hatefulness  !  It  is  the 
polluting  of  God's  truth,  which  is  the  worst  of  all 
impurities.  Yet  how  light  we  make  of  it!  We 
look  at  it,  and  are  calm.  We  touch  it,  and  do  not 
shudder.  We  mix  with  it,  and  have  no  fear.  We 
see  it  touch  holy  things,  and  we  have  no  sense  of 
sacrilege.  We  breathe  its  odor,  and  show  no  signs 
of  detestation  or  disgust.  Some  of  us  affect  its 
friendship;  and  some  even  extenuate  its  guilt. 
We  do  not  love  God  enough  to  be  angry  for  his 
glory.  We  do  not  love  men  enough  to  be  charitably 
truthful  for  their  souls.  Having  lost  the  touch, 
the  taste,  the  sight,  and  all  the  sense  of  heavenly- 
mindedness,  we  can  dwell  amidst  this  odious  plague, 
in  imperturbable  tranquillity,  reconciled  to  its  foul- 
ness, not  without  some  boastful  professions  of 
liberal  admiration,  perhaps  even  with  a  solicitous 
show  of  tolerant  sympathies.  Why  are  we  so  far 
below  the  old  saints,  and  even  the  modern  apostles 
of  these  latter  times,  in  the  abundance  of  our  con- 
versions ?  Because  we  have  not  the  antique  stern- 
ness. We  want  the  old  Church-spirit,  the  old 
ecclesiastical  genius.  Our  charity  is  untruthful, 
because  it  is  not  severe;  and  it  is  unpersuasive. 
because   it   is   untruthful.     We    lack    devotion  tc 


THE   DEVOTION    TO    THE    PRECIOUS   BLOOD.      353 

truth  as  truth,  as  God's  truth.  Our  zeal  for  souls 
is  puny,  because  we  have  no  zeal  for  Cod's  honor. 
We  act  as  if  God  were  complimented  by  conver- 
sions, instead  of  trembling-  souls  rescued  by  a 
stretch  of  mercy.  We  tell  men  half  the  truth, 
the  half  that  best  suits  our  own  pusillanimity  and 
their  conceit;  and  then  we  wonder  that  so  few  are 
converted,  and  that  of  those  few  so  many  aposta- 
tize. We  are  so  weak  as  to  be  surprised  that  our 
half-truth  has  not  succeeded  as  well  as  God's 
whole-truth.  Where  there  is  no  hatred  of  heresy, 
there  is  no  holiness.  A  man,  wdio  might  be  an 
apostle,  becomes  a  fester  in  the  Church  for  the 
want  of  this  righteous  abomination.  We  need  St. 
Michael  to  put  new  hearts  into  us  in  these  daj-s  of 
universal  heresy.  But  devotion  to  the  Precious 
Blood,  with  its  hymning  of  the  Church  and  its 
blazoning  of  the  Sacraments,  will  give  us  Michael's 
heart  and  the  craft  to  use  Michaels  sword.  Who 
ever  drew  his  sword  with  nobler  haste,  or  used  his 
victory  more  tenderly,  than  that  brave  archangel, 
whose  war-cry  was,  All  for  God? 

The  Precious  Blood  is  His  Blood,  who  is  espe- 
cially Uncreated  Truth.  It  is  His  Blood  who  came 
with  his  truth  to  redeem  souls.  Hence,  love  of 
souls  is  another  grace,  which  comes  from  the  spirit 
of  this  devotion.  I  wish  "the  love  of  souls"  were 
words  that  were  not  so  shortly  said.  They  mean 
so  much  that  wre  should  linger  over  them,  in  order 
to  imbibe  their  sweetness,  perhaps  also  their  medi- 
cinal bitterness  as  well.  A  volume  would  hardly 
say  all  that  wants  saying  upon  this  matter.  In  all 
ages  of  the  Church  a  zeal  for  souls  is  a  most  neces- 
sary grace;  and  this  is  hardly  an  age  in  which  it 

X  SOS 


354       THE   DEVOTION    TO    THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

is  less  necessary  than  usual.  Alas!  it  is  a  r-°re 
gift,  incredibly  rare,  rare  even  among  us  priests, 
and  a  gift  unfortunately  dishonored  more  than 
most  gifts  by  base  counterfeits  and  discreditable 
impostures.  Of  all  things  that  can  be  named,  the 
love  of  souls  is  perhaps  the  most  distinctively 
catholic.  It  seems  to  be  a  supernatural  sense, 
belonging  only  to  the  Church.  There  are  several 
classes  of  saints,  classes  divided  from  each  other 
by  wide  discrepancies  of  grace,  and  a  dissimilitude, 
almost  an  incompatibility,  of  gifts.  Yet  the  love 
of  souls  is  an  instinct  common  to  all  saints  of 
whatever  class.  It  is  a  grace  which  implies  the 
accompaniment  of  the  greatest  number  of  graces 
and  the  exercise  of  the  greatest  number  of  virtues. 
It  is  the  grace  which  irreligious  people  most  dis- 
like ;  for  even  sin  has  its  instinct  of  self-preserva- 
tion; and  it  is  a  grace  which  is  peculiarly  obnoxious 
to  the  worldly.  It  is  a  gift,  also,  which  requires  an 
unusually  fine  spiritual  discernment;  for  it  is  always 
and  everywhere  the  harmony  of  enthusiasm  and 
discretion.  Natural  activity,  vulgar  emulation,  the 
bustle  of  benevolence,  the  love  of  praise,  the  habit 
of  meddling,  the  over-estimate  of  our  own  abilities, 
the  hot-headedness  of  unripe  fervor,  the  obstinacy 
of  peculiar  views,  the  endless  foolishnesses  of  indocile 
originality, — all  these  things  prepare  so  many  de- 
lusions for  the  soul,  and  so  multiply  them  by  com- 
bining in  varieties,  that  the  gift  of  counsel  and  the 
virtue  of  prudence,  as  well  as  the  cool  audacity 
of  an  apostle,  are  needed  for  the  exercise  of  this 
love  of  souls.  It  is  also  a  very  laborious  grace, 
wearing  the  spirit,  fatiguing  the  mind,  disappoint- 
ing the  bsart.     This  is  the  reason  why  in  so  many 


THE    DEVOTION    TO   THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD.       355 

persons  it  is  a  short-lived  grace.  It  is  a  part  of 
almost  even-body's  fervor,  while  it  is  part  of  tho 
perseverance  of  very  few.  It  is  a  grace  which 
never  grows  old,  never  has  the  feelings  of  age,  or 
the  repose  of  age,  or  the  slowness  of  age.  Hence 
many  men  cast  it  aside  as  a  thing  which  belongs  to 
youth,  as  if  it  were  a  process  to  be  gone  through 
and  then  there  were  an  end  of  it.  The  soul  of  an 
apostle  is  always  youthful.  It  was  mature  in  its 
young  prudence;  and  it  is  impetuous  in  its  gray- 
haired  zeal. 

But,  if  it"  is  a  grace  hard  to  persevere  in,  it  is 
one  which  gives  marvellous  unity  and  consistency 
to  a  man's  life,  and  ultimately  crowns  it  with 
inevitable  and  enviable  success.  If  there  is  nothing 
in  which  work  is  hardeiythere  is  nothing  in  which 
success  is  more  certain,  than  the  love  of  souls.  It 
is  a  perfect  combination  of  spiritual  nobilities.  Of 
all  single  expressions  of  the  Sacred  Heart  it  is  the 
broadest.  It  unites,  as  nothing  else  does,  charity 
to  God  and  man.  On  the  one  hand  it  seems  intui- 
tively to  understand  God,  and  on  the  other  hand 
to  have  a  supernatural  attractiveness  about  it, 
which  crowns  it  a  king  of  men.  It  is  a  grace 
which  makes  a  man  surprisingly  genial  and  invete- 
rately  happy.  It  delivers  the  heart  from  jealousy, 
rivalry,  and  all  littleness;  and  by  this  especially 
do  we  know  it  from  its  counterfeits.  Moreover,  it 
works  little  miracles  of  its  own;  for  it  increases  a 
man's  intellectual  power,  at  least  in  its  own  direc- 
tion. This  is  a  beautiful  sight,  and  one  of  those 
palpable  things  of  grace,  which  seem  to  supersede 
faith  by  sight, — the  beholding  of  the  grand  things 
accomplished,  and  the  broad  regions  covered,  by 


356       THE    DEVOTION    TO    THE   PRECIOUS   BLOOD. 

mediocrity  of  talent  when  raised  above  itself  by 
zeal  for  souls.  It  lives  equally  in  action  and  con- 
templation, and  thereby  supplies  for  a  number  of 
omissions  in  the  spiritual  life.  It  imparts  a  de- 
lightful simplicity  to  the  character,  sobering  all 
gayety,  and  enlivening  all  seriousness.  It  is  an 
emanation  of  apostolic  grandeur,  a  touch  of  the 
vocation  of  the  Apostles  whose  calling  was  above 
all  others  in  the  world,  as  their  sanctity  was  special 
among  other  sanctities.  It  impregnates  the  soul 
with  a  strong  personal  love  of  Jesus,  and  is  a  par- 
ticipation in  the  adorable  communicativeness  of 
God,  What  a  grace  is  this  to  possess!  It  is  the 
grace  which  perhaps  of  all  others  is  the  most 
direct,  natural,  and  inevitable  grace  of  the  Devo- 
tion to  the  Precious  Blood. 

In  close  connection  with  this  grace  we  should 
name,  as  another  fruit  of  the  spirit  of  this  devo- 
tion, a  great  devotion  to  the  Sacraments.  But  this 
has  been  sufficiently  dwelt  upon  in  the  course  of 
the  Treatise.  A  zeal  for  souls  is  naturally  given 
to  magnify  the  Sacraments.  An  apostolic  man 
knows  of  them  by  experience.  He  has  seen  the 
magic  of  their  operations.  He  has  seen  how  they 
can  lie  in  the  bosom  of  corruption,  like  God's 
amulets,  and  charm  away  the  vicinity,  the  relics, 
the  associations,  the  roots,  the  attractions,  of  sin. 
He  has  handled  their  divine  realities,  and  worships 
rather  what  he  sees  than  what  he  knows  of  by  the 
hearing  of  faith.  But  a  great  devotion  to  the 
Sacraments  is  not  only  an  inseparable  accompani- 
ment of  zeal  for  souls:  it  is  also  an  antidote  against 
all  that  is  worldly,  material,  and  anti-supernatural 
in  the  tendencies  of  the  present  day.     It  will  iu« 


THE    DEVOTION    TO  THE   PRECIOUS    BLOOD.      357 

crease  in  us,  in  proportion  as  Ave  grow  in  devotion 
to  the  Precious  Blood. 

The  effect  of  this  devotion  upon  our  devotion  to 
our  Blessed  Lady  may  well  be  named  as  one  of  its 
graces,  one  of  the  revelations  of  its  spirit.  It 
makes  our  devotion  to  her  an  integral  part  of  our 
devotion  to  Jesus.  It  makes  the  two  devotions 
one.  It  dniAvs  her  into  the  scheme  of  redemption 
so  intimately,  and  at  the  same  time  with  such 
splendors  of  separate  exaltation,  that  the  very 
highest  language  of  the  saints  about  her  becomes 
easy  to  us,  and  is  the  only  natural  expression  of 
our  inward  love.  To  be  enthusiastic,  our  love  of 
Mary  only  needs  to  be  theological.  The  devotion 
to  the  Precious  Blood  clothes  her  with  a  new  glory. 
It  makes  Mary  magnify  Jesus,  and  Jesus  magnify 
Mary.  It  causes  her  individual  mysteries  to  shino 
forth  like  stars,  the  Preeious  Blood  forming  the 
clearness  of  the  purple  night  in  which  their  pecu- 
liar brightness  is  more  visible  and  more  distinctive. 
lie  that  can  find  another  point  of  view,  from  which 
our  dear  Lady  seems  greater  than  before,  has  got 
a  new  means  of  sanctification;  for  he  has  acquired 
a  new  power  of  loving  God:  and  the  devotion  to 
the  Precious  Blood  is  full  of  such  points  of  view. 

The  devotion  to  the  Precious  Blood  must  also 
obviously  impart  to  us  a  special  love  of  the  Sacred 
Humanity.  It  admits  us  into  the  most  secret 
recesses  of  our  Lord's  Human  Life.  Like  its  own 
reiterated  pulsations,  each  one  of  its  mysteries 
urges  upon  our  faith  and  love  the  dreadest  realities 
of  his  Created  Nature,  while  at  the  same  time  it 
seems  to  lay  open  before  us  the  Hypostatic  Union, 
and  to  illustrate  its  strength.     Our  Lord  is  God; 


858      THE   DEVOTION    TO    TIIE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

»  and  we  all  worship  him  as  such.  But  there  is  a 
peculiar  adoration  of  his  Divinity,  which  comes 
from  a  special  love  of  his  Humanity.  We  would 
fain  love  God  as  he  loves  us.  But  there  is  a  ten- 
derness in  his  love  of  us,  which  we  dare  not  return 
because  of  his  infinite  majesty.  Yet  somehow 
there  is  something  in  the  particular  adoration  of 
our  Lord's  Godhead  arising  from  special  devotion 
to  his  Humanity,  which  insinuates  this  element  of 
tenderness  into  our  adoration  without  diminishing 
the  sacred  terror  of  our  self-abasement.  This  ele- 
ment is  one  of  the  peculiar  gifts  of  the  devotion  to 
the  Precious  Blood. 

One  thing  more.  Where  Jesus  is,  all  honors  and 
all  glories  and  all  loves  gather  round  the  Father 
Who  can  doubt,  then,  but  that  the  devotion  to  the 
Precious  Blood  is  also  a  devotion  to  the  Eternal 
Father?  Think  of  the  immensity  of  the  Father's 
love  for  that  redeeming  Blood.  Out  of  all  possible 
creations  he  chose  it  alone  for  the  price  of  our 
redemption.  Only  its  value  could  enrich  the  glory 
of  the  Creator,  which  the  creature's  sin  had  striven 
to  impoverish.  Only  from  its  victory  would  ho 
condescend  to  receive  back  the  dominion  of  which 
he  had  been  despoiled.  Only  its  fulness  could 
satisfy  the  claims  of  all  his  outraged  perfections. 
Only  its  sweetness  could  make  universal  peace  in 
heaven  and  on  earth.  It  was  to  the  Person  of  the 
Father,  by  appropriation,  that  this  dear  price  of 
our  souls  was  paid.  Nay,  our  devotion  to  the 
Blood  of  his  Son  is  only  an  imitation  of  the 
father's  complacency  therein.  It  is  his  joy,  and 
his  devotion.  To  join  him  in  this  devotion  to  the 
Blood  of  his  Son  is  in  truth  to  practise  a  distinct 


THE  DEVOTION  TO  THE  PRECIOUS  BLOOD   359 

devotion  to  himself.  Devotion  to  tho  Eternal 
Father!  this  is  the  sweet  grace  to  covet.  Show 
us  the  Father,  said  Philip  to  his  Lord,  and  it  ia 
enough  for  us. 

Now,  reader,  our  task  is  done,  and  3*et  we 
would  fain  linger  over  the  subject.  It  so  fasci- 
nates us  that  any  conclusion  we  can  make  seems 
to  be  abrupt.  The  more  we  say,  the  more  appears 
to  remain  unsaid.  New  glories  of  the  Precious 
Blood  are  constantly  coming  into  view,  and  new 
abysses  opening  to  our  contemplation.  So  it  is 
with  all  divine  things.  They  clothe  themselves 
in  the  changefulness  of  divine  love.  They  shine 
with  a  divine  light  upon  them,  and  therefore  their 
brightness  is  always  new.  They  borrow  the  beauty 
of  God,  and  so  they  satisfy  our  love  by  making  it 
still  more  insatiable.  We  feel  that  all  that  has  been 
said  has  been  unworthy  of  the  Precious  Blood. 
Indeed,  it  has  been  unworthy  even  of  our  own 
conceptions  of  it.  But  what  love  has  taught  to 
one  soul  may  waken  the  chords  of  love  in  others. 
What  has  been  a  light  to  one  mind,  and  a  joy  to 
one  heart,  may  carry  light  to  other  minds  and  joy 
to  other  hearts.  May  it  be  so,  and  Jesus  more 
loved  and  God  more  glorified  ! 

Let  us  recapitulate.  We  began  with  reflecting 
on  the  mystery  of  the  Precious  Blood,  because  all 
devotion  starts  best  with  doctrine,  The  incre- 
dibilities of  divine  love  become  more  credible 
when  we  have  learned  them  first  as  dogmas.  It 
was  also  the  more  necessary  to  begin  with  doc- 
trine in  the  case  of  a  devotion  which  claims  to  be 
an  adoration  also.  We  then  turned  from  God  to 
man,  and  strove  to  form  a  right  estimate  of  the 


360      THE   DEVOTION    TO    THE   TRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

Precious  Blood  by  studying  from  various  points 
of  view  our  extreme  need  of  it,  and  our  immea- 
surable wretchedness  without  it.  We  then  tra- 
versed its  empire,  learned  its  character  by  studying 
the  method  of  its  government,  and  judged  of  its 
magnificence  by  the  splendor  of  its  dominion. 
Our  next  step  was  to  unfold  its  chronicles.  We 
found  there  a  whole  revelation  of  God,  and  much 
of  the  secret  history  of  his  eternity.  We  dis- 
covered there  our  own  place  in  creation  by  dis- 
covering our  place  in  the  procession  of  the  Pre- 
cious Blood.  From  its  history  we  passed  to  its 
biography,  to  that  notable  characteristic  of  it 
which  especially  reveals  its  spirit, — its  prodigality. 
We  saw  then  how  God's  prodigalities  are  not 
excesses,  but  most  orderly  magnificences ;  and  also 
how  our  poverty  is  so  extreme  that  we  can  only 
live  on  from  day  to  day  by  being  economical  of 
God's  most  exuberant  liberalities.  As  we  had 
begun  with  doctrine  and  adoration,  we  have  had 
to  end  with  practice  and  devotion.  The  history, 
the  characteristics,  and  the  spirit  of  the  devotion 
to  the  Precious  Blood  have  been  the  concluding 
subjects  of  our  reflections.  We  have  thus  consi- 
dered the  Precious  Blood  as  a  Doctrine,  a  Neces- 
sity, an  Empire,  a  History,  a  Divine  Prodigality, 
and  a  Devotion.  In  all  these  six  aspects  of  it  we 
have  found  it  continually  disclosing  certain  affini- 
ties, running  into  certain  subjects,  illuminating 
certain  depths,  and  connecting  itself  with  certain 
mysteries,  and  all  this  with  so  much  repetition 
and  so  much  constancy  that  we  cannot  believe  its 
sympathy  with  them  to  be  accidental.  It  be- 
speaks  rather  a  divine  law,  and  is  a  disclosure 


THE    DEVOTION    TO    THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD.      36J 

of  the  Divine  Mind.  Those  cognate  subjects  with 
the  Precious  Blood  are  three  in  number.  They 
arc  first  the  Magnificence  of  God's  Dominion, 
secondly  the  Church,  and  thirdly  the  Sacraments. 

Ao  we  grow  in  devotion  to  the  Precious  Blood, 
tho  sovereignty  of  God  will  become  more  dear  to 
us,  and  clearer  as  it  grows  more  dear.  Our 
loyalty  to  the  Church  will  become  more  and  more 
a  pari  of  our  spiritual  life,  and  more  and  more 
a  sa'actiiying  exercise  of  the  special  virtue  of  reli- 
gion. Our  faith  and  joy  in  the  Sacraments  will 
be  continually  increasing,  and  our  devotion  to 
thern  will  be  at  once  our  shelter  and  our  shield 
from  the  dangers  which  at  this  day  threaten  both 
the  minds  and  hearts  of  the  faithful,  while  our 
more  reverent  frcquentation  of  them  will  augment 
our  union  with  God  and  make  us  saints.  Such  is 
devotion  to  the  Precious  Blood.  It  is  a  glory  and 
an  ornament  to  tho  Church.  It  is  the  life  of  tho 
living,  and  the  thirst  of  the  Holy  Dead.  It  is  tho 
song  of  angels.  It  was  the  light  of  all  Mary's 
darkness,  and  the  jubilee  of  all  her  woes.  It  was 
the  device  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  the  devotion 
of  his  love.  It  was  the  devotion  and  singular 
possession  of  Jesus  himself  It  was  the  devotion, 
the  choice,  and  the  complacency  of  tho  Eternal 
Father. 

What  more  can  we  say  ?  Sweet  worship  of  the 
Blood  of  Grod  !  a  worship  with  so  man}*  of  man's 
peculiar  rights  in  it,  embracing  all  theology  in 
itself,  and  then  turning  all  its  vast  theology  into 
tenderly  triumphant  song!  Dear  Fountain,  that 
rises  in  the  heart  of  God's  human  Mother,  and 
flows  down  over  the  glorified  souls  of  men  into  the 

31 


302      THE    DEVOTION   TO    THE    PRECIOUS    BLOOD. 

Bosom  of  the  Eternal  Father,  while  those  count- 
less souls,  like  the  pebbles  of  the  stream,  make 
everlasting  music  as  it  flows  !  It  is  earth's  beati- 
tude to  feel  that  the  Precious  Blood  is  bearing  U9 
onward  into  that  adorable  Abyss  of  Love.  Jt  is 
heaven's  jubilee  to  be  sinking  evermore  through 
that  same  Blood  in  the  unfathomable  depths  of 
the  Uncreated  Bosom  of  the  Father.  All  glory 
and  all  worship  be  to  that  mysterious  River  of 
the  City  of  God,  whose  Spirit-fashioned  streams 
are  carrying  us  this  hour  with  such  breathless 
swiftness  to  our  home, — our  home  with  the 
Mortal  Mother  and  the  Unbeginning  Father  of 
the  Eternal  Son  ! 


INDEX. 


Absolution.  200 

Actions,  outward,  liable  to  misappre- 
hension, 29;  supernatural,  of  the 
Church,  300. 

Adoration  of  the  three  kings,  186. 

Age,  spirit  of  the,  evil  influence  of, 
154. 

Ages  cf  the  world,  29. 

Agony,  the,  205. 

Alacrity,  341. 

Almsgiving,  whence  it  comes.  07  ; 
what  it  would  be  without  faith,  71 ; 
of  obligation,  73. 

Angela  15.  of  FoUjjno,  217. 

Angels,  creation  of  the,  18. 175 ;  graces 
of,  25 ;  their  worship  of  the  Precious 
Blood,  34 ;  Created  in  a  state  of 
grace,  101;  multitude  of,  117,  252; 
glory  of,  160  ;  fall  of,  176 ;  guardians 
of  the  Precious  Blood  during  the 
three  days,  193,  2j7  ;  ministers  of  it 
in  purgatory,  297 ;  mirrored  in  the 
Church,  312. 

Anne  of  the  Cross,  208. 

Anne  of  Jesus,  328. 

Anne  of  i?t.  Augustine,  331. 

Antichrist,  times  of,  199,  230. 

Apostates,  what  makes  them,  132. 

Apostasy,  the  general,  230. 

Ascension,  the,  195. 

Ashridge,  monastery  of,  329,  332. 

Attributes  of  God,  95;  devotion  to 
them,  319;  fruits  of  devotion  to, 
322 ;  mystery  of,  323. 

Attrition,  87. 

Authority  of  the  Chu-ch,  by  whom 
hated,  155. 


Barbarians  less  wicked  than  itu 
civilized,  63. 

Baptism,  66,  135,  136;  character  of, 
14.i ;  the  application  of  the  Precious 
Blood,  2S9. 

Beatitude,  natural,  86. 

Beauty  of  the  Church,  314. 

Ballon  de,  Mother,  331. 

Eenci,  Marcello,  328. 

Blessed,  the,  rejoice  in  the  vision  of 
tho  Precious  Blood,  237. 

Bloodsheddings,  the  seven,  260. 

Blood,  the  Precious,  11 ;  the  sourc"  oi 
salvation,  14,  342;  Eternal,  17  ;  in- 
fluences of,  23-25;  worship  of,  31 ; 
during  the  Passion,  33,  120,  286:  in 
the  chalice,  35,  342;  infinity  of  its 
worth,  37,  115;  the  shedding  of  it 
free,  38,  242;  is  invisible,  38;  how 
assumed,  39;  God's  daily  gift,  44; 
reveals  the  character  of  God,  45,99; 
prodigality  of  its  shedding,  47,  84  ; 
a  voice  which  God  hears.  50 ;  neces 
sity  of,  52;  hinders  millions  of  sins, 
62;  the  protection  of  the  poor.  67; 
the  cause  of  all  temporal  blessings, 
69;  everywhere  accessible,  89;  ope- 
rations of,  infallible,  91 ;  unmerited, 
93;  unimaginable,  94;  destiny  of, 
changed  by  sin,  98, 108;  inseparable 
from  the  life  of  God,  99;  empire  of. 
100;  glories  of,  106;  relations  of, 
to  Creation, 103;  and  to  the  incarna- 
tion, 107 ;  reinstated  the  dominion 
of  God,  101,  109;  how  sp;  ken  of  in 
the  Holy  Scriptures,  111,  115;  con- 
verts, 120  ;  work  of,  incessant,  125; 
builds  up  the  Church,  129;  instru- 

3(53 


3G4 


INDEX. 


ments  of,  133;  flows  through  the 
Sacraments,  142,  150;  effect  of  on 
hell,  158;   on  purgatory,  258,  297, 

347  ;  sung  by  the  angels,  101 ;  flowed 
from  the  heart  of  Mary.  102;  ap- 
peases the  anger  of  God,  103;  in 
the  Unity  of  God,  164;  an  unbe- 
ginning  procession  of  created  tilings, 
174;  the  beginning  of  creation,  176; 
in  the  fall,  179;  in  the  flood,  L81; 
among  the  patriarchs,  182;  in  the 
Immaculate  Conception,  183;  iu 
Bethlehem,  185;  in  the  desert,  187; 
in  Nazareth,  187;  in  Cana,  189;  in 
the  Holy  Land,  ]S9;  on  Olivet  and 
Calvary,  191 ;  iu  the  charge  of  the 
angels,  193,  293  ;  on  Ascension  clay, 
195;  on  the  day  of  Pentecost,  190; 
in  Home,  197;  through  the  world, 
199 ;  at  the  last  day,  199 ;  in  the 
mind  of  God,  204;  before  the  In- 
carnation, 206 ;  in  adoration,  212  ; 
life  of,  a  great  secrecy,  214;  life  of, 
on  earth,  210;  in  conversion,  220, 
225 ;  life  of,  in  the  Church,  226; joy 
of  the  blessed,  237;  in  the  Sacred 
Heart,  247,  342;  in  the  chalice,  23'J ; 
conquered  back  creation,  254;  exu- 
berance of,  250  ;  in  the  circumcision, 
2G2;  in  the  Agony,  206;  in  the 
Scourging,  270;  in  the  Crowning. 
275;  on  the  way  of  the  Cross,  276; 
iu  the  Crucifixion,  2hl ;  iu  the 
piercing  of  the  Sacred  Heart,  2S5 ; 
in  Baptism,  289 ;  iu  Absolution,  290 ; 
in  the  Sacraments  of  Man  iage,  291  : 
of  Orders,  292;  of  Confirmation, 
291;  of  Extreme  Unction,  294;  of 
the  Eucharist.  2jG;  in  the  Papacy, 
298;  Extra-sacramental  effects  of, 
299;  History  of,  320;  the  most  cum 
mon  of  all  supernatural  things, 
350. 

Donhommos,  332. 

Hooks  of  devotion,  occasionally  exag- 
gerated, 256. 

Coulier,  Mother  4nne  Seraphim,  17. 

Bul'alo  del,  Gaspare,  330. 


Cain.  00,  S8. 

Cana,  the  marriage-feast  if,  1S8. 

Cautiousness,  132. 

Catherine,  St..  of  Siena,  327. 

Centurion,  the,  lanco  of,  2S5. 

Change,  none  in  God,  97,  110. 

Character,  Sacramental,  140,  257  ; 
Eternal,  119. 

Charity,  Christian.  72  mure  than 
philanthropy,  81. 

Child-murder,  289. 

Chalice,  reveals  character,  103. 

Church,  relation  of,  to  the  world.  30; 
blessedness  of  being  in  the,  60;  the 
work  of  the  Precious  Mood,  130, 134, 
324 ;  power  of,  in  relation  to  the 
Sacraments,  145;  palace  of  the  Pre- 
cious Mood,  220;  not  to  be  criti- 
cized, 231 ;  to  be  feared.  232;  devo- 
tion to  the,  309 ;  a  special  creation, 
310;  how  she  appears  to  God,  311; 
grandeur  of,  313;  vicegerent  oJ 
Gud's  dominion,  324. 

Circumcision,  the,  201;  what  it  was 
to  St.  Joseph,  263 ;  to  our  Lady,  204. 

Cities,  types  of  heaven,  180. 

Civilization  increases  sins,  03  ;  bo- 
comes  a  tyraDny,  69  ;  perishes  with 
the  world,  313. 

Column  of  the  Scourging,  271. 

Comfort  of  good  people,  339. 

Communion,  grace  of,  147,  257. 

Conception,  the  Immaculate,  40, 123, 
183;  definition  of,  348. 

Confidence  in  God,  351. 

Confirmation  not  prefigured  in  the 
old  law,  135;  character  of,  149; 
effects  of,  294. 

Confraternity  of  the  Precious  Blood, 
33o  ;  iu  England)  333. 

Congregation  of  the  Missioners  of  the 
Precious  Blood,  330.   . 

Consolations  of  philanthropy,  75. 

Controversy,  30. 

Conversion  of  St.  Paul.  121 

Conversion,  116;  resembles  creation, 
118,  124;  operation  of  the  Preiiuus 
Blood,  221 ;  ageucio9  of,  222 


INDEX. 


3G5 


Corruption  of  men,  181. 

Creative  love,  expression  of,  29. 

Creation,  17 ;  in  what  sense  eternal, 
17  ;  how  to  be  viewed,  23,  85  ;  free, 
98,  119,  122  ;  instantaneous,  117, 
118. 

Crown  of  thorns,  273. 

Cross,  the,  278. 

Crucifixion,  the,  271. 

Days,  the  Six,  177. 

Dead,  devotion  of  the,  to  the  Precious 
Blood,  346. 

Decrees,  the  divine,  172. 

Deliverance  from  sin,  when  it  comes, 
10. 

Delusion,  sign  of,  320. 

Depreciation  of  the  Church,  325. 

Destitution  of  the  world  without 
grace,  55. 

Devotion  to  the  Sacraments,  neces- 
sary, 142;  why,  154;  perils  it  wards 
off,  155 ;  to  the  Church,  228,  307 ; 
combines  all  interests,  313 ;  to  the 
attributes  of  God,  319. 

Devotions,  316,  334. 

Devotion  to  the  Precious  Blood,  326, 
335;  destroys  Pelagianism,  335; 
and  libertinage,  336 ;  brings  out 
the  principle  of  sacrifice,  337  ;  does 
not  usurp  the  place  of  other  devo- 
tions, 340;  is  a  variety  of  devotion 
to  the  Passion,  340;  an  additional 
form  of  devotion  to  the  Messed  Sa- 
crament, 342;  unveils  the  phy- 
sical realities  of  the  Sacred  Heart, 
342 ;  comprehends  the  life  of  our 
Lord,  344;  has  an  affinity  with  that 
of  the  Rosary,  345 ;  has  a  power  of 
intercession,  316;  its  peculiar  alli- 
ance with  the  Immaculate  Con- 
ception, 348 ;  begets  love  of  the 
common  things  of  faith,  349;  begets 
confidence,  351 ;  creates  hatred  for 
sin,  351;  begets  a  love  of  souls, 
353;  a  great  devotion  to  the  Sacra- 
ments, 356;  effect  of,  on  devotion 
to  our  Lady,  357  ;  imparts  a  special 

1 


love  of  the  Sacred  Humanity,  357; 
is  a  devotion  to  the  Eternal  lather, 
358. 

Diplomacy,  131. 

Discontent,  232. 

Doctrine  of  the  Sacraments  the  touch- 
stone of  all  the  theology  3f  the  day, 
228. 

Dole,  Carmelite  convent  at,  208. 

Dominion  of  Cod,  101 ;  reinstated  by 
the  Precious  Dlood,  109,  254;  mi- 
nistered to  by  the  Precious  Dlood, 
324. 

Dying  without  religion,  77. 

Earnestness,  235 ;  dependent  on  faith, 
303. 

Earth,  creation  of,  21;  special  glory 
of,  21 ;  changes  of,  129 ;  special 
station  of  the  Precious  Blood.  177. 

Eden,  179. 

Education  helps  men  to  sin,  63. 

Elevability  of  the  creature,  136. 

Emery,  of  St.  Sulpice,  on  the  doctrine 
of  hell,  158. 

Empire  of  our  Lord,  established  by 
the  Precious  Dlood,  116. 

Empires,  human,  of  less  importance 
than  one  soul,  221. 

Epochs  of  life,  27. 

Espousals,  the  divine,  185  ;  day  of, 272. 

Eternity,  17  ;  hard  to  realize,  51. 

Eucharist,  sacrament  of  the,  might 
have  been  instituted,  if  Adam  had 
not  sinned,  10S ;  what  it  is,  134, 135, 
136 ;  the  great  laboratory  of  tho 
Precious  Dlood,  296. 

Exclusiveness  of  the  Church,  325. 

Extra-sacramental  effects  of  the  Pre- 
cious Blood,  298. 

Face,  the,  of  Jesus,  190. 

Failure,  the  most  universal  unuappi- 

ness,  76. 
Fall,  the,  85;     consequences  of,  86; 

effects  of,  on  creation,  179 ;  where 

(he  remedy   of,  precisely   consists, 

214. 


3Go 


INDEX. 


fastidiousness,  336. 

Father,  Eternal,  devotion  to  the,  35S. 

Fear  of  the  Church,  232. 

First-fruits  of  creation,  157. 

Flight,  the,  into  Egypt,  187. 

Flood,  the,  181. 

Forms  of  the  Sacraments,  141, 145, 

Frances  of  the  Mother  of  God,  209, 

215,  328. 
Francis  of  the  Infant  Jesas,  331. 
Francis,  St.,  of  Sales,  331. 
Fruits  of    devotion  to  the  Precious 

Blood,  349. 

Garden  of  the  Agony,  265. 

Gertrude,  St.,  327. 

Ghost,  the  Holy,  126;  fertility  of,  127. 

Gladness  of  salvation,  11. 

Glories  of  the  Precious  Blood,  95. 

God,  presence  of,  34.  52;  life  of,  95; 
simplicity  of,  96;  dominion  of.  101 ; 
magnificence  of.  in  the  Sacraments, 
14S;  revealed  more  intimately  in 
the  Sacraments,  154;  vastness  of, 
211 ;  secrecy  of,  214 ;  magnificence 
of,  242,  247,  250;  infinity  of,  254. 

Grace  of  the  Sacraments,  140;  never 
exhausted,  148. 

Grace,  all  to  be  accounted  for,  257. 

Greek  civilization,  70. 

Ground,  lowest,  307. 

Hailes,  monastery  of,  329,  332. 
Happiness  of  sinners,  12;  whence  It 

comes,  82. 
Heart,  the  Sacred,  31 ;  emptied  of  the 

Precious  Blood,  192;  filled  with  it, 

238;   in  the  Agony,  267;    piercing 

of,   2S4 ;    symbol  of   the  Precious 

Blood,  342. 
Heathen,  state  of  the,  57;  influenced 

by  the  Precious  Blood.  128. 
Hell,  fires  of,  140 :  doctrine  of,  158 ;  the 

descent  into,  192. 
Heresy  of  society,  238 ;  effects  of,  on 

converts,  232;  the  sin  of  sins,  352. 
Heretics,  misery  of,  59,  92. 
Hierarchy,  the,  197. 


Holiness,  a  restraint,  244;  cai.nol 
exist  wheie  there  is  no  hatred  of 
heresy,  353. 

Horrors  of  unrestrained  sin,  65. 

Host,  bleeding  of  the,  43. 

Humanity,  exaltation  of  the  Sacred, 
194. 

Hypostatic  Union,  39,  237 ;  never  in- 
terrupted, 286. 

Ideas  of  God,  27. 

Ignatius,  St.,  40. 

Images  in  the  mind,  use  and  abuse 
of,  168. 

Immutability  of  God,  110. 

Incarnation,  mystery  of,  18 ;  how 
affected  by  sin,  22;  affects  all  things, 
69  ;  unmerited,  94 ;  not  the  conse- 
quence of  sin,  102 ;  part  of  the  idea 
of  creation,  107. 

Indulgences,  whence  they  come,  207  ; 
ministers  of  the  Precious  Blood, 
224. 

Infallibility,  gift  of.  223. 

Infancy  of  Jesus,  209. 

Infinity  of  God,  254. 

Influence  of  the  Precious  Blood  on 
states  and  policies,  219. 

Innocents,  the  Holy,  157. 

Intention,  doctrine  of,  149. 

Invalidity  of  Sacraments,  291. 

Jacob's  well,  266. 

Jansenism,  230,  325,  326. 

Jealousies  of  scientific  men,  307. 

Jesus  Risen,  devotion  to,  341. 

Joseph,  St.,  greatness  of  Ills  sanctity, 
104;  silence  of,  186;  at  the  circum- 
cision, 263. 

Joy,  all,  comes  from  the  Precious 
Blood,  238. 

Joy,  human,  purified  by  the  Sacra- 
ments, 152. 

Judgment,  day  of,  54, 199. 

Jurisdiction,  in  the  Sacraments,  145; 
of  the  Church,  the  law  of  the  Fro- 
cious  Blood,  159,  297. 

Judging  the  Church,  231. 


INDEX. 


oG7 


Justification,  operation  of  the  Pre- 
eious  liluoil,  220. 

Kingliness  of  the  Papacy,  29S. 

Kings  of  creation,  307. 

Kiss  of  the  Father  and  the  Son,  129. 

Laxity  and  rigor,  229. 

Law  in  God,  247. 

Liberty  of  the  creature,  102. 

Liberty  of  God,  248. 

Libertinage,  336. 

Life  of  the  Precious  Blood,  203 ;  one 

of  joy,  213;  of  sorrow,  214. 
Literature,  helpless.  10;  influenced  by 

the  Precious   Blood,  220;   perishes 

with  the  world,  313. 
Lombard,   Peter,  on  the  doctrine  of 

hell,  15S. 
Loss,  the  three  days,  1S8. 
Louisa  of  Jesus,  209. 
Love  of  the  Church,  necessary,  234. 
Love  of  Jesus,  must  grow,  53. 
Loveliness  of  Je^us,  14. 
Lcve  of  souls,  353,  355. 
Loyalty  tn  the  Church,  233. 
Luxury,  338. 

Magnificence,  243. 

Magnificence  of  God,  represented  in 
the  Sacraments,  148;  in  the  Pre- 
cious Blood,  242;  the  fountain  of 
salvation,  245. 

Malcontents,  what  makes  them,  132. 

Man.  degeneracy  of,  1S1. 

Manna,  20. 

Mantua,  relics  of  the  Precious  Blood 
at,  329,  332. 

Margaret  of  Beaune,  329 

Margaret  of  the  Blessed  Sacrament, 
211. 

Margaret  of  the  Passion,  329. 

Maria  Franeesca  V.  of  the  Five 
Wounds.  328. 

Marriage.  Sacrament  of,  291. 

Martyrdom,  147. 

Mrtj'j  her  blood,  39;   her  grandeur, 


104,  105,   holds  sway  over  the  Pre- 
cious Bloid,  102. 

Mary  of  Agreda,  4<",. 

.Mary  Magdalen,  St.,  of  Pazzi,  327. 

Mass. :;:. ;  daily  effects  of,  297. 

Maternity,  the  divine,  merited  by  the 
Precious  Blood,  102. 

Matter,  creation  of,  17''. 

Matrimony,  the  sacrament  of,  135. 

Meditation  on  the  crucifixion,  2S1. 

Merits,  vitality  of.  224. 

Michael,  B.  of  Florence,  208. 

Middle  Age,  the  time  of  deceptions, 
132. 

Mind  of  God,  171. 

Miracle,  the  first,  1S9. 

Miracles  compared  with  the  Sacra- 
ments, 144. 

Miraculous  Blood,  42. 

Missionaries,  290. 

Misery  of  life  without  God,  71. 

Mortification,  337. 

Mysteries  in  God,  173. 

Mystery  of  the  Precious  Blood,  16. 

Napkin  of  Veronica,  269,  277. 
Nations,  diversities  of,  28. 
Nativity  of  our  Lady,  1S4. 
Natural  goodness,  too  much  thought 

of,  70. 
Naturalism,  335. 
Nature  and  grace,  69. 
Nature,  created,  101. 
Necessity  of  God's  magnificence,  253, 

258. 
Numerousness  of  sin,  300. 

Oblations  of  the  Precious  Blood,  297, 
346. 

Orbs  of  heaven,  20,  247 ;  numbers  of, 
252 ;  order  of,  302. 

Order,  sacrament  of,  134,  135;  cha- 
racter of,  149  ;  earthly  heart  of  th« 
Precious  Blood,  293. 

Order  of  all  things,  247. 

Oratory,  London,  333. 

Original  sin,  possible  fruits  of,  68 


3G8 


INDEX. 


Osanna  of  Mantua,  327. 

Pain, 56;  physical, 73:  varieties  of,  74. 
Parsimoniousness,  apparent,  in  tiod, 

251. 
Passion,  severities  of  the,  19;    two- 
fold aspect  of,  l'Jl ;  devotion  to  the, 
340. 
Paul,  St.,  the   preacher   of   the   Pre- 
cious Blood,  10,  326;  conversion  of, 
121. 
Pelagianism,  335. 
Penance,  absorbs  temporal  evil,  78; 

sacrament  of,  134,  135. 
Pentecost,  196. 

Perfection,   grace  of,   sometimes   ne- 
cessary for  salvation,  25S. 
Perfections,  the  divine,  and  the  Pre- 
cious Blood,  163. 
Peter,  St.,  28;  author  of  the  title  of 
Precious,  as  applied  to  his  Master's 
Blood,  116. 
Philanthropy,  70;   helpless,  72:  can- 
not reach  mortal  pai  i,  75  ;  hollow- 
ness  of,  79,  80. 
Philip  Neri,  St,  233,  329. 
Philosophy,  helpless,  10. 
Piercing  of  the  Sacred  Heart,  284. 
Pius  IX.  instituted  a  new  feast  of  the 

Precious  Blood,  333. 
Poor,  the,  what  they  might  be  with- 
out the  Precious  Blood,  66,  67. 
Popes,   the,    present    the    crown  of 

thorns,  238. 
Potentia  obedientialis,  137,  note. 
Poverty,  beautiful,  72. 
Prayer,    difficulty    of,   167;    for    the 

Church,  347. 
Precepts  of  the  Church,  233. 
Predestination,  91 ;  of  our  Lord.  107. 
Preparation  of  the  Incarnation,  1S3. 
Presence  of  God,  34. 
Prietshood  of  our  Lord,  201. 
Principle,  the  sacrauieutal,  by  whom 

hated,  154. 
Proces.-ion    of  the   Holy  Ghost,  123, 

125,  129. 
Procession  of  the  Precious  Blood,  174; 


vi.-ilile  in  Bethlehem,  185;  in  the 
|i.  -ill,  1^7;  in  the  Holy  Land,  189; 
in  heaven  ami  earth,  195. 

Prodigality,  extra-sacramental,  of  the 
Precious  Blood,  298. 

Prodigality  of  God,  252. 

Progress,  70;  influenced  by  the  Pre- 
cious Blood,  220. 

Prophetess  of  the  Precious  Blood,  327. 

Proselytism,  81. 

Purgatory,  tires  of,  140 ;  how  affected 
by  the  Precious  Blood,  158,  347. 

Queen  of  Creation,  10. 
Queendom  of  our  Lady,  223  ;  in  her 
heart,  276. 

Kaphael,  St.,  gave  communion  to 
Maria  Fraucesca  of  the  Five 
"Wounds,  32$. 

Redemption,  through  the  Precious 
Blood,  11,  343:  might  have  been 
otherwise,  37  ;  interwoven  with  the 
Sacraments,  299. 

Refinement  makes  sin  more  malig- 
nant, 63. 

Reformers,  what  makes  them,  132; 
spirit  of,  293. 

Relics  of  the  Precious  Blood,  329; 
at  Mantua,  329;  at  Ashridge  and 
Hailes,  330. 

Religion,  terrors  of  a  false*  57. 

Religious  men  alone  successful,  76. 

Resurrection,  the.  193;  effect  of  devo- 
tion to  the,  211. 

Revelations  and  devotions,  318. 

Reverence,  337. 

Richard  of  Cornwall,  332. 

Rigorousness,  229,  325. 

Rimini,  miraculous  apparition  at,  330. 

Roman  civilization,  7u. 

Koine,  seat  of  the  Precious  Blood, 
197;  salvatiou  only  iu  the  Church 
of,  230. 

Rosary,  the,  345. 

Sabbath,  the,  97, 125. 

Sacraments,  the  communication*  of 


INDEX. 


3G9 


tl/e  Precious  Blood,  25,  4S;  the 
nearest  approach  to  an  assurance 
of  salvation,  93;  description  of, 
134,  136;  causes  of  grace,  138;  re- 
plicate  tbe  grace  of  Jesus  in  us.  141 ; 

wives  of  the  Precious  Blood,  142; 
inventions  of  God,  143;  are  not 
properly  miracles,  144;  special 
grace  of  each,  140,  140;  hivo  laws 
of  their  own.  144,  140;  supply  each 
other,  148;  sensitiveness  of,  150; 
influence  of,  151 ;  create  joy,  152; 
number  of.  153;  conduits  of  the 
Precious  Blood,  156;  dowry  of  the 
Church,  226;  aqueducts  of  the 
Frecious  Blood,  255 ;  grandeur  of, 
301 ;  power  of,  356. 

Sacrifice,  the  principle  of,  337. 

Sacrilege,  Sacraments  exposed  to  the 
risk  of,  291. 

Saints,  intercession  of  the,  ICO;  vision 
of,  185 ;  the  most  joyful  on  earth, 
239. 

Salvation,  9;  through  the  Precious 
Blood,  14;  of  those  out  of  the 
Church,  how  difficult,  92;  depend- 
ent on  the  Church,  130;  none  out- 
side the  Roman  Church,  230  ;  bless- 
edness of,  240. 

Sanetification,  125,  12S. 

Satan"s  power  over  ns,  source  of, 
168. 

Scapular,  the  red,  333. 

Science,  helpless,  10 ;  varieties  oi, 
305. 

Scourging,  the,  270. 

Secrecy,  characteristic  of  divine 
things.  214. 

See,  the  Holy,  fount  of  the  Precious 
Blood,  130;  has  the  jurisdiction  of 
it,  297. 

Silence,  the  respectful,  of  Jansenism, 
155. 

Silence,  effect  of,  231. 

Simplicity,  234. 

Sin.  horrors  of.  9, 10;  why  permitted, 
21;   consequences  of,   22;    import- 


ance of  realizing  what   it   is,  46;  t 
before  the  II I.  iil  ;  always  grow- 
ing, 62;   made  mure  malignant  by 
civilization.  63,  7o ;  effects  of,  on 
creation,  109. 

Sinner,     the     habitual,     12;     in    tho 

Church,  60;  the  educated,  63. 
Sleep,  artificially  induced,  168. 
Solitude  of  Jesus  in  his  agony,  207. 
Sorrow,  without  Christ,  56;  purinea 

by  the    sacraments,    151 ;    instru 

roent  of  redemption,  213. 
Soul,   innermost    sanctuary    of   the, 

160. 
Souls,  creation  of,  97,  117.  125;  love 

of,  353. 
Spirit  of  the  age,  131,  132. 
Spiritual     and     temporal,     unwisely 

distinguished   69. 
Stability,  235 
Stars,  their  number,  20. 
Statistics,  306. 
Stephen,  St.,  181. 
Stigmata,  the,  2S7. 
Sufferings  of  lost  souls,  57. 
Sweating  of  the  Blood  of  Jesus,  41, 

208. 

Temple,  the,  1S2;  the  disputation  in, 
187. 

Theology,  connection  of,  with  sanc- 
tity, 17;  changes  of,  30;  scholastic, 
43:  the  fuel  of  devotion,  106;  the 
fe»t»  ot,  315. 

Theories  about  heretics,  92 ;  danger 
of,  231. 

Thorns,  the  crown  of,  274 ;  how  worn 
by  the  Popes,  298. 

Tiara,  the  crown  of  thorns,  298. 

Time,  beginning  of,  17-"). 

Tongues,  confusion  of,  1S1. 

Tranquillity  of  God,  172,  24s. 

Trinity,  the  Holy,  bow  worshipped  is 
the  Church,  315. 

Triumphs  of  the  Holy  See,  131. 

Truth,  daDger  of  betraying,  353 


436034 


870 


I  N'DEX. 


Dnbaptized,  the,  55. 
Unchangeableness,  the,  of  God,  110 
Unction,  Extreme,  not  prefigured  id 

the  old   law,  135;    effects  of,  150, 

295. 

fastness  of  God,  211. 

Veronica,  St.,  napkin  of.  2G9,  277. 

Vicar,  the,  of  Christ,  131;  comes  to 

Home,  197. 
Views,  worldly,  the  danger  of,  132; 

rigorous,  229. 
Vincent  of  Gonzaga,  332. 
Vincontians,  red  scapular  of,  333. 
Virtue  of  the  Precious  Blood,  where 

it  resides,  324. 
Virtue,  habits  of,  impossible  without 

mortification,  337. 
Vocations,  20,  67,  338. 

Water,  running,  280. 
Way,  the  Milky,  252. 


Way  of  the  Cross,  276. 

Wickedness  of  the  world  before  tht 
flood,  61. 

Words,  divine,  119;  power  of,  145* 
the  seven,  283. 

Works  of  God,  201 ;  none  of  his  ex- 
ternal works  necessary,  259. 

World,  scientific  divisions  of  the,  210. 

World,  the,  without  the  Precious 
Blood,  62. 

Worldliness,  338. 

Worship  of  the  Precious  Blood,  31. 

Wounds,  the  Five,  54,  2S7. 

Yearning  of  our  Lord  for  his  Passion, 
47  ;  of  his  Sacred  Heart,  266. 

Years,  the  Thirty-Three,  184,  207; 
effects  of  meditating  on,  208;  ever 
repeated  in  the  Church,  309,  319; 
source  of  manifold  devotions,  317. 

Youth,  how  it  errs,  132;  iemptstioa? 
of,  335. 


T1TX   SKW. 


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